


Apteros

by nightbloomingcereus



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Acropolis of Athens, Ancient Greece, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Athena Parthenos (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Athens, Canon Compliant, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Historical References, M/M, Mythology - Freeform, Mythology References, Parthenon marbles, Pining, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Wings, cw: wing removal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-01-27 20:31:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21398224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightbloomingcereus/pseuds/nightbloomingcereus
Summary: Apteros: (adj., Ancient Greek: ἄπτερος) wingless.  Sometimes used as a descriptor for Nike, the goddess of victory, in her role as an aspect of Athena, the patron goddess of the city of Athens. Known as Athena Apteros or Nike Apteros, she was depicted without wings so that Victory would never be able to leave the city.All myths have their roots in stories that are true.  The myth of the founding of the city of Athens is no exception.  But all stories have their darker side.(Or, Crowley and Aziraphale in Athens, from antiquity to the 1800's to the present.)
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 45
Kudos: 91





	1. Chapter 1

**Athens, Ancient Greece**

This story begins, as so many stories do, with a tree and a snake. The tree was heavy with purple-black fruit nestled among slim, pointed, waxy leaves, and stood alone beside a spring whose water was curiously salty and thirsty as the sea, on the crest of a rocky, flat-topped mount. When the people came closer, they saw that a great serpent, glistening black and red in the late autumn sun, lay coiled around the lower branches where they spread from the trunk. The spring was fed by an underground aquifer that led to the ocean, an unlikely but not impossible geological curiosity in a land surrounded by salt water and shaped by a Flood. The tree was an olive tree, one of many that peppered the countryside. The snake, however, was truly the only one of its kind.

The people had forgotten, or perhaps had made the choice to forget, a much older story involving a serpent in an apple tree, temptation, knowledge, and exile. (They did, however, tell a different tale about the Goddess of Discord, a golden apple, and the most beautiful woman in the world; that too, is, at its heart, a story about Temptation.) They remembered only vaguely yet another story, of a world covered in water and a dove bearing a long, thin olive leaf that spoke of hope and an end to the endless waves and swells of salty tears drowning the earth. Like all good fables and myths, the passing of these tales over many years had softened or even erased altogether any number of terrible things: long, desperate, cold nights, brothers killing brothers, and dead children, just to name a few, leaving behind only pretty little stories of ineffable gods and glorious heroes and unredeemably evil monsters, with tidy morals to tie everything together at the end. 

The serpent in the tree had been, truth be told, enjoying a rather nice nap in the afternoon sun when it was disturbed by the noise of a great many people tramping up the hillside, dislodging rocks and clods of dry earth, chattering with great excitement. It had been dreaming of an angel - pleasant half-human, half-serpentine dreams of lying coiled and warm in a nest of soft, pale feathers, great white wings wrapped around his bare shoulders, sweet-smelling skin pressed against his own scales and skin. A little disgruntled at being woken, it slowly opened one luminous golden eye and regarded the humans balefully for a long moment before raising its head, flaring its hood, and emitting an irritated hiss. One or two of the people correctly interpreted this gesture to mean _danger, venom, death _and slunk quickly to the rear of the gathered crowd, but the majority of them had come in search of signs and portents and so had forgotten to be afraid. Having failed to drive them away with traditional serpentine menace, the snake hissed again, sounding rather huffy and exasperated, and slithered out of the tree, dropping to the ground with a sinuous twist. As it hit the ground, the long, sinuous body rapidly transformed, in a motion too complex for human eyes to comprehend, from tail to head, into a pair of sandaled feet, a tall, thin body, a proud, sharp visage. This remarkable being had long, tight, flame-red coils of hair cascading down their back and held in place at the forehead by a thin gold circlet, fierce, bright eyes like pools of liquid amber, and a complicated, looping sigil of a snake inked below their right ear. They were dressed in flowing, shimmering robes of an unnaturally fine and lustrous cloth, black trimmed with red, both colors inconceivably deeper and more true than the faded blacks and muddy reds that one could dye with oak gall and rose madder[1]

Naturally, the humans jumped to conclusions. 

Demons (and angels) are sexless unless they choose to make an Effort. The demon Crowley was most decidedly not making any Effort one way or another that particular day, and indeed had not even bothered to alter his corporation's face and body to appear more feminine (or masculine, for that matter), but the long, lush curls and the ornate, diaphanous robes were apparently enough to convince the people that he was in fact female. In addition to the obviously supernatural, dramatic shape-shifting, there were any number of smaller things about him that were not quite human: the eyeteeth that were just a little too long and pointed, the slit pupils in the golden eyes, the mesmerizing, swaying gait. Crowley had a certain awkward, inhuman grace that was particularly evident immediately after he'd transformed, the juxtaposition of the lanky, sharp angles and planes of his human corporation overlaid on the slithering, flowing curves of the serpentine one. The people, who had climbed up here in the first place because of a prophecy that spoke of a struggle between Athena and Poseidon on this very plateau, were convinced that they were in the presence of something divine[3]. To them, men and women fed from childhood on myths of the Olympian gods, the identification was obvious: here was bright-eyed Athena in the flesh, attended by serpents, marking her dominion over this city, a clear triumph over Poseidon and his tear-salty sea. If they noticed that she was taller than many men, and as flat-chested, they chose to see those things as evidence of her divinity. She was the Goddess of War, after all, not luscious Aphrodite or motherly Demeter.

He had lifted a hand as he had shifted, intending to perform some as-yet-undetermined act of demonic mischief, mostly out of irritation at having been unceremoniously woken. He had not been prepared for all of the people to suddenly abase themselves at his feet, kissing the ground and chanting, "Athena! Athena! Bright-eyed Athena!" He'd spent enough time in Attica to be familiar with their myths and beliefs, and it was easy enough to sense their awestruck, reverent thoughts and emotions. He hastily redirected his already-gathered reserve of demonic energy toward the hems of his own robes, which started swaying and swirling under their own power, suggesting slithering, serpentine coils, glistening scales, and flicking tongues. For good measure, he snapped his fingers and changed the seawater in the nearby spring to pure, sweet, fresh water. It was just water, not Holy in the least, not wine or milk or honey, but, to those watching, it was just as miraculous.

As far as origin myths go, he decided, right then and there, that he'd take _sprung fully formed from the head of her father _any day over _crawled on his belly out of a lake of boiling sulphur_. These humans had flair, they had _imagination._ He liked the idea of coming into the world in such a dramatic, if macabre, fashion. The headache to end all headaches. It was amusingly appropriate, too, given that he'd already been the cause of many a headache for both Heaven and Hell.

He hadn't invented Athena, of course, any more than he had invented the idea of Sin, even though he had been the agent of its spread in the world. But stories, and myths in particular, have a self-referential way of coming back to the truth, albeit a convoluted and conflated version of it. Perhaps he _had _been the inspiration for Athena, in a way. Historians in later years would trace the cult of Athena back to much older stories of Minoan snake goddesses and fearsome Gorgons with snakes for hair, and perhaps even all the way back to Eve, with a flaming sword in one hand and an apple in the other, a great scarlet-and-ebony serpent hanging in heavy coils from the branches above her head.

They believed that Athena was the Goddess of Wisdom. Crowley did not think of himself as particularly wise. Cunning, to be sure; wiling was part of his job description, after all. Perhaps even clever. He knew a lot of things compared to humans, but that was just something that happened when you had thousands of years of lived experience on their mere decades. He _had_, however, been the one to tempt Eve into eating that apple, and there was some sort of inevitability there that he appreciated. The fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. It depended on how you saw things: was knowledge the same as wisdom? He thought Aziraphale might have said yes, if grudgingly. The other angels, no; they would have counseled prudence, and obedience, and ignorance, as the wiser choices. As for the demons, he didn't really think that most of them had ever even considered the question.

Athena was also the Goddess of War. Crowley himself had never been particularly warlike, although he was happy to sow discord and stir up mischief. He'd never swung a sword in his life. He rather suspected that they had conflated Athena with a different supernatural, red-haired entity, one not occult or celestial in nature but born of their own, very human, desires and fears. The Greeks were, in Crowley's opinion anyway, rather too fond of war, enough so that two of their twelve Olympian gods, and a handful of minor deities in addition, were dedicated to it, but that was how it was with humans more often than not.

But once humans latched on to an idea, it was hard to get them to let it go. They saw what they wanted to. They had imaginations that far outstripped their short lives and limited knowledge. They told stories, to explain a world that was frequently beyond their understanding; they believed themselves to be the heroes of all those stories.

And so the tale persisted, and grew in the telling. Crowley found himself rather enjoying the attention; he felt appreciated in a way that he had never been among his fellow demons in Hell. They built temples and meeting places on the high mount where they'd first seen him, beside the olive tree and the miraculous freshwater spring that never seemed to run dry, even in the most parched and sunburnt months of high summer. They brought him offerings of wine (which he very much appreciated) and various edible delicacies (about which he was mostly ambivalent). On one particularly important occasion, they sacrificed a goat. Hell (and Heaven, for that matter) approved of such things, but Crowley found the entire notion unpleasantly and unnecessarily bloody and barbaric. He had dealt with it by snapping his fingers and bringing the animal back to life. The people were appropriately awestruck as they watched it amble away, pausing to nibble complacently on the long grass next to the altar. Thankfully, no more animals were sacrificed after that, at least not to him.

His work, of course, occasionally necessitated that he spent months, or years, or even decades, in other locales, performing extended and sometimes complicated temptations. However, over hundreds of years, he found himself returning to Athens more and more often in the lulls between these assignments. It was nice for a change not to have to worry about constantly maintaining a defensive feint to draw attention away from his eyes or his immortality. Here, his less human qualities and the fact that he did not appear to age only fueled the belief that he was the goddess Athena, come to dally in her favored city. His extended absences and sudden reappearances were chalked up to Olympian caprice and the ineffability of the gods. Sometimes, when he didn't wish to be noticed, he would walk among the humans in a more masculine guise, with his bright red hair cropped close to his skull in tight curls and his eyes miracle-shielded; it amused him that the locals would on those occasions think him a lucky man to be so blessed by Athena herself.

He was not there when the Persians sacked the city, and destroyed the Acropolis, but he was there when the Athenians regained control and built it back up again. They praised bright-eyed Athena and made her offerings of oil and wine, and thanked her for their deliverance. Their earlier hardships, they decided, must have a been a test from the goddess of their mettle and faith, and the subsequent triumphs over the Persians proof that they had passed the test. In some ways this was true – Crowley had in fact been in Persia for much of this time, as he had been tasked by Hell to cultivate the bloodlust and dictatorial tendencies of Xerxes, although he'd had to do very little actual tempting, the man being plenty blood- and power-thirsty all on his own. Later on, off the books, he'd covertly tempted some of Xerxes' key generals and strategists to desert at crucial points during the war, ensuring that the Athenians would have a fighting chance.

Forever optimistic, the people rebuilt the city, and the Acropolis above it, grander and more beautiful than before. Great blocks of luminous white marble were hauled with Herculean effort from the quarries in the northeastern mountains to the top of the Acropolis and sculpted into towering columns, beautifully carved and painted statuary, and elaborate friezes to decorate the monumental walls. They built temples to the glory of Athena: grandest and most awe-inspiring among them was the Parthenon, stately and magnificent. Athens became a center of art and culture, and philosophers, historians, poets, playwrights, and orators all flocked to her, gathering in the square of the agora or at symposia in the lavish houses of the rich. People said reverently that the city was not only beloved of Athena but also of the nine muses.

And, following the muses, came Crowley's own muse. The angel Aziraphale, who could never resist the allure of books and poetry and knowledge, especially when they came with free-flowing wine and sweet honey cakes. They'd crossed paths in the city before, of course, but only in passing, when Aziraphale had been tasked by Heaven to convey a blessing or perform a miracle, but he had never lingered before, not the way Crowley had, instead blowing in and out of the city like the elusive, gentle west wind. But now it seemed that Crowley was always running into him, buying figs and pomegranates at the open-air markets, spending evenings at symposia in the homes of preeminent men, discussing poetry and politics in the agora. And just as it had been since Eden, Crowley couldn't stay away, sought out his company. The city of Athens shone brightly indeed, graced by such divinity.

Aziraphale told him that Athens was suffused with love. Her people loved the city so much that they would do almost anything for her. It was why, he said, he kept coming back here, although the philosophy and literature and food didn't hurt either. Crowley thought that he could almost, _almost, _feel it, in the way they venerated him, or Crowley-as-Athena in any case.

Owls had an affinity for Aziraphale, or perhaps he had an affinity for them. It was, Crowley supposed, a natural thing for all creatures, owls and the Serpent of Eden alike, to love the Angel of the Eastern Gate. The small, brown-and-white owls no larger than a man's hand that roosted atop the olives and cypresses on the slopes of the Acropolis would swoop down to Aziraphale when he was walking in the cool of the evening, occasionally even perching on his white-robed shoulder. They were wary of Crowley, in the respectful manner of one yellow-eyed predator to another, and would usually circle at a small distance if he was with Aziraphale. Nevertheless, their proximity was noted, and somehow the people began to consider the small owls another symbol of Athena. They did not note the increasingly constant presence of Aziraphale in his company, as far as he could tell. He suspected that this was because Aziraphale was being rather more circumspect and still utilizing deflective miracles in a way that Crowley had long stopped bothering with in this particular city.

Aziraphale would smile fondly at the owls, and sometimes ran a gentle finger along the downy feathers of the ones that landed on his shoulder, and they in turn would preen for him, hooting softly and turning their heads to gaze at him with their luminous golden eyes. Crowley tried not to be jealous, and mostly succeeded by reminding himself that they were merely small, earthly creatures, whereas he was at the very least an _adversary_. Eventually, the owls would have to fly back to their lonely treetops and nights of solitary hunting, whereas he would get to spend the remainder of the long night in Aziraphale's company, drinking watered wine and eating briny olives and flatbreads drizzled with aromatic golden honey. Thanks to the people constantly presenting him with offerings, Crowley was always well-stocked with the finest wines and the most desirable sweets and savories to be found in the city, which he offered shamelessly to Aziraphale whenever he could. He could spend all night watching the angel eat pomegranate seeds one at a time, in a way that was simultaneously dainty and indecent, his mouth stained deep red with the sweet juice. Crowley was certain that he had to have been using some kind of miracle to keep his white robes pristine and unstained in such close proximity to all those bursting, juicy pomegranate arils.

(The Greeks had a myth about pomegranate seeds and temptation too. One seed for every month in the underworld. One seed for every month of winter. Only six seeds, all told. A half-truth. In other, older, truer versions of the story, the pomegranate was an apple, and Eve ate one half, Adam the other. And while it was strictly true that there were no storms, no biting winds, no roiling clouds, nothing but an endless succession of sun-filled days and mild, gentle nights, until after that apple was eaten, only She knows for sure if Eve taking that first bite was the real reason for the advent of winter. Correlation is not causation, after all.)

The Athenians built a great statue of monumental height, as tall as six men, glorious in gold and ivory, worth more than most of the city below, and called her _Athena Parthenos_. The goddess was bedecked with serpents - they ringed her waist and fringed her mantle, and Erichthonius, the serpent of Athens, ready to strike at her command, reared up beside her. She held Victory in her palm, with wings like an angel. Her hair was a flaming red, her garment night-black and blood-red, her eyes a rich, faceted gold. On her right cheek, the artist painted a small black serpent, coiling below her ear like a lock of hair loose from its bindings.

When the statue was finally completed, there was a great ceremony to dedicate it to the goddess, and everyone was invited up to the temple complex to pay their respects, making a grand and lengthy procession of people in their finest linen robes, bearing lavish offerings of oil and wine and gold. Crowley came with them, garbed like a man; he had expended a modicum of demonic energy to shift attention away from his hair and eyes, thus escaping most of the notice that he normally drew in his guise as Athena. He was content, this day, to simply watch from between two columns along the eastern side of the building.

Aziraphale drew up beside him, and together they watched the statue being unveiled under the grand pediment of the Parthenon. She was so tall that her crown nearly touched the stone lintels of the roof above. Sunlight streamed through the marble columns and illuminated the bright golden eyes and crimson-painted hair of the statue; it glinted on the surface of a shallow reflecting pool filled with water from the sacred spring outside. The people poured libations of wine and oil and honey and made rich offerings of gold and jewels accompanied by requests for fortune and prosperity and victory, and the attendants lit smoky, sacred fires, murmuring devotions all the while. 

"She's beautiful," Aziraphale said softly, "but troubling, too."

"And why is that, Angel?"

"_Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image._"

"You know as well as I do, Angel, that Her words were never as clear as that. It's never that simple with Her. It's ineffable, isn't that what you always say?"

"I suppose," said Aziraphale, sounding unconvinced.

"That bit with the graven images, that was all Moses anyway. Brilliant of him, really, to carve the Commandments into those great big stone tablets. Lends weight to any argument."

"Even so, Crawly. Even so. This is all so … ostentatious. They should be worshipping Her, if they worship anyone. Not … Athena. Those that would put themselves above Her, who play at being gods… I worry, is all. _Pride goeth before a fall, _you know."

He had been certain for a long time that Aziraphale knew that the people thought he was Athena, although Aziraphale had never asked and he had never volunteered the information. Anyone with ears could hear the talk around the city, and anyone with eyes could see the resemblance between the many depictions of the goddess, this one included, and Crowley. What he had been less certain of was what, if anything, Aziraphale thought about it; he had thought he might be angry, or disappointed, or just resigned. He hadn't expected _concern._ It felt odd, off-kilter.

"I'm a _demon_, Aziraphale. Already Fallen. Already damned."

Aziraphale looked uncomfortable, worrying at the ties of his robes with his hands and refusing to look at Crowley, but did not respond.

"In any case," said Crowley finally, "I can't tell the humans what to do and what to believe and who to worship anyway. Neither of us can. She was the one who gave them free will."

They lapsed into silence and their own private thoughts. When the ceremony was over, they joined the throngs of exhausted people making their way slowly down the mountain and parted quietly.

They still spent long evenings sharing jugs of wine in the courtyard attached to Crowley's quarters, gazing at the stars as they appeared one by one in the late night sky and discussing poetry or politics or philosophy, but they did not speak of Athena again.

The days, and weeks, and months, and years, passed quickly for an immortal being who was enjoying himself, and enjoying himself he was. He was worshipped and venerated, had the pleasure of Aziraphale's company for long stretches of time, and his work here was for the most part straightforward and even enjoyable. He was still a demon after all, even if he was playing at being a goddess, and took pleasure in a well-designed temptation.

He waved a hand and ripened all of the fruit in an entire grove at once. He did another grove a few days later, then yet another, and so on and so forth. This, he reasoned, would inspire gluttony, and the figs falling faster than people could pick them created an unholy mess and underlying low-grade irritation. Crowley watched Aziraphale sink his perfect, pearly teeth into the soft, luscious, blush-studded flesh of fresh, perfectly ripe figs for weeks, and decided that he would write this one up as _gluttony, check; covetousness, check; lust, check_.

He tempted a young poet (who happened to be a favorite of Aziraphale's) to lust by appearing to himlate one night as if in a dream, clad in nothing but his hair, grown long and lush for the occasion, and diaphanous wisps of fabric. If Aziraphale noticed that the subject of the young man's poems had inexplicably and suddenly changed from golden and soft and sun-bright to slim and flame-haired and moon-pale, bearing an uncanny resemblance to the goddess Athena, he did not mention it. He did seem to enjoy the new verses. Crowley himself thought that the earlier ones were far superior.

He made a neighborhood well overflow with strong wine, and the resulting drunkenness inspired an entire pantheon of deadly sins (or could reasonably be expected to, if one did not wish to determine the cause and effect of each of the many occurrences individually). If rapt poetry and heartfelt love confessions and unexpected camaraderie also happened to come about, that was just unavoidable collateral damage. The people ascribed this miraculous occurrence to Dionysus, which rankled Crowley just a little and made him wonder whether he'd chosen the wrong Olympian to impersonate. He decided, after some thought, that Athena was a better choice anyway: although he was a big fan of wine, ritual madness really wasn't his thing, as it had an unfortunate tendency to get out of hand and then things just got _so messy_.

He inspired Aziraphale’s favorite philosopher to forgo his responsibilities in favor of writing a divinely (or demonically) inspired treatise. This in turn sowed the seeds of envy and resentment among his peers, resulting in an outpouring of scholarly work such as had never been seen before, begetting a beautifully vicious cycle of jealousy, one-upmanship, bitter academic discourse, and bullheaded scholarly pride. (And more books, of course, also meant a happy angel rambling on excitedly about philosophy to his demonic companion on long, midnight walks along the winding paths of Athens' olive-groved hills.)

He whispered in Sophocles' ear that Euripides was writing a play that would be a masterpiece for all eternity; he said much the same, only switching the names, to Euripides. The result was a rivalry that became a festival that became a tradition; thousands gathered in the great, open-air bowl of stone that they named the Theater of Dionysus to watch and judge performance upon performance of tragedy upon tragedy. When Aziraphale complained that he could not hear the actors from their seats, Crowley subtly changed the configurations of the pillars and stones so that the sound projected bell-clear to even the seats at the highest, outer edge of the amphitheater. The preponderance of tragedies was not what he had intended, although he could certainly spin it to Hell as spreading despair, but it was worth it because Aziraphale drank up each new work with undisguised pleasure. Crowley himself preferred the comedies, Aristophanes' in particular, with their bawdy jokes and dry satire. Aziraphale acted shocked and affronted, but laughed behind the hand covering his mouth, his eyes crinkling up in an endearing way.

These temptations and others in the same vein were more than sufficient to keep his bosses in Hell happy. He'd even gotten a commendation for the wine thing. Furthermore, he said, if the people were busy worshipping Crowley, then they weren't worshipping Her or listening to Her Word. It wasn't really so simple as all that (there was room in human hearts for more than one god, as the Olympian pantheon neatly demonstrated) but Lord Beelzebub and Dagon and all the rest were more than satisfied with this explanation. (Privately, Crowley also thought that it probably didn't matter whether someone believed in Her or not; the relative proportion of souls going to Heaven and Hell respectively didn't seem to change with the number of believers, and you certainly didn't have to be a Satanist or even believe that Satan existed to end up in Hell.) And although some might have argued that you needed to believe in God and Heaven to believe in the Devil and Hell, well, the Greeks had an Underworld, and an appropriately fearsome god who ruled it, and that was close enough to keep Lucifer and his ego happy. Occasionally, of course, he'd be called upon to perform some more targeted temptation, either in Athens or abroad, but he always returned to the city in between assignments, and for the most part Hell left him well enough alone.

In retrospect, it had all been too lovely an interlude to last. Wine and honey and the hot, languorous Athenian sun. Poetry and owls and starlight. The blazing fire of the people's worship. The slow, sweet sunlight of the angel's regard.

It was so easy to become careless. 

* * *

[1]The fabric was Chinese silk, which was miraculous only insomuch as the Greeks did not yet know that either the Chinese or their silk existed. The black color, however, was completely demonic in nature. Vantablack would not be invented for several more millennia.[2]

[2]Whether or not Crowley actually invented Vantablack or just claimed to have done so is up for debate. He was, however, 100% responsible for Anish Kapoor's ridiculous claim of artistic monopoly on the color.return to text

[3]The irony was not lost on Crowley, who was about as far from Divinity as anyone could possibly be. He made a mental note to mention it in his next annual progress report to Hell, although he doubted whether any of the other demons would appreciate the irony.return to text

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes on mythology and history referenced in Chapter 1:
> 
> According to the Ancient Greek myth of the founding of Athens, Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war, and Poseidon, the god of the sea, had a contest at the Acropolis to determine who would be the patron deity of the city. Athena gave the city an olive tree, which produced fruit and wood and oil, while Poseidon created a spring of sea water, representing commerce and the bounty of the sea. The people judged Athena's gift to be the greater, and thus chose her to be the protector and namesake of the city. Athena is often called "bright-eyed" (most famously by Homer) and associated with snakes in many guises.
> 
> Historians and archaeologists believe that the area around the Acropolis of Athens was first settled by humans sometime around 3000 BC. I've kept the date of the "founding" of Athens vague in this fic because it's a myth, after all, and not history, and I'm also trying to keep things compliant with the GO-canon timeline. However, some of the later events in this chapter take place during actual historical events. The Persian sack of Athens took place in 480 BC, at which point the buildings on the Acropolis were largely destroyed. The Parthenon and other buildings that we see the ruins of today were built after the Athenians regained control of the city in the latter half of the fifth century BC, a period known as the Golden Age, during which art and culture flourished. 
> 
> The [Athena Parthenos statue](https://www.ancient.eu/article/785/athena-parthenos-by-phidias/) was a massive statue of Athena with various snakey accoutrements that was housed in the Parthenon. The dedication ceremony that is described here would have taken place in 438 BC. In our world, this statue has been lost and was most likely destroyed, although several copies of it still exist today.
> 
> A note on Crowley's name here:  
My headcanon is that Crowley actually changed his name well before Golgotha, and just didn't tell Aziraphale until then. I've not addressed this directly in this fic (if you're curious, I did discuss it in my Noah's Ark fic, Upon Still Waters), but it's why he refers to himself as Crowley here but Aziraphale still calls him Crawly.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up: this chapter is the reason for the Graphic Depiction of Violence warning. (I don't actually know if it's really graphic enough to warrant it, and it's definitely not gory or gratuitous, but it's more violent than my usual stuff so I'm adding the warning just in case. )

On moonless nights from atop the Acropolis, the stars were so bright, so multitudinous, the night sky so high, so unbounded, that a night-winged creature could not help but give in to the desire to fly. The legions of owls, their eyes as golden as Crowley's own, that soared back and forth between their perches in the rafters of the Parthenon and the swaying, pointed tops of the tall cypresses were testament to the glories of flying by night. For larger creatures, demons or goddesses, the joys were only magnified. The swoop and dive, the wild plummet with wings folded back, the precise and blade-sharp control required to open them just as the salt spray of the ocean kissed one's cheeks. The wind, cold and bracing and alive, whistling like a whetstone along the sleek length of long, straight, rigid flight feathers, brushing like a kiss against the softer edges of the flexible, downy feathers beneath. The black of great, wide wings against the black of the night sky over the black of the rippled sea. The prevailing night winds blowing swift and sure over the sleeping city, most of its fires guttered for the night, and out to sea. The pinprick brightness of thousands of stars hanging above and below, reflected in the calm waters of the bay, shadowed by the dark hulks of the islands of Aegina and Hydra across the harbor.

Flying was an intricate play of soft feather and hard muscle and pure nerve upon warm thermals and cold updrafts. The air felt infinite and boundless, and Crowley could almost forget that he was supposed to be a creature of the dark, damp, crowded underground pits of Hell. He wondered, on nights like these, whether he would ever be able to convince Aziraphale to come flying with him, while everyone else slept. He had never asked, and could not imagine that he ever would; he did not intend or wish for it to be a temptation, at least not for the angel. He remembered the brush of Aziraphale's wing against the side of his face as he lifted it to shield Crowley from the first rains in Eden. It had been the barest touch, just an accidental swipe of feathertip against skin, and somehow more intimate than anything else he'd experienced in all the years since. It had been a very long time since he'd seen Aziraphale's wings, and he had never seen him fly; somehow, it seemed an intimacy, a vulnerability, that was not permitted to adversaries, even such as themselves.

It is a myth that the wings of demons are fundamentally different from the wings of angels. True, Crowley's wings were black, but they had been just so in heaven too, and, in fact, the wings of angels were a veritable panoply of shades: iridescent blue-blacks, snowy whites, tundra-sky grey, warm, speckled browns, the occasional jeweled peacock blue. They were the models for the wings of birds, after all[4]. (Crowley privately thought that the persistence of the notion that all angels had white wings was probably Aziraphale's fault, as the only angel on Earth for the majority of its history. It was only natural that the humans had taken the one to represent the whole; if only it were true, he mused, if only all angels were like Aziraphale, the universe would be a vastly different and kinder place.) So, too, it is a myth that the Fallen lost their wings when they fell, the feathers trailing long tongues of fire and smoke as they burned up like supernovas through the firmament on the long, long way down. This is not to say that all demons still had their wings, just that the truth of it was far less poetic than the stories would have you believe, and had more to do with the brutalities of war than the blazing glory of falling stars.

It was ironic that Aziraphale, who knew the truth of what he was, had probably never seen him fly, but there were humans, who were not supposed to know of such things, who probably had. He did not always bother to cloak himself from their eyes; it had hardly even seemed necessary after a while. Athens was a land of gods and monsters, after all, and her whispers were full of wonders: gods and goddesses walking the streets of the city, snakes that turned into women, saltwater turning into freshwater, freshwater turning into wine. Crowley was certain, for example, that either Scylla or Charybdis, or possibly both, was actually Dagon having a bit of fun on her days off. And Argus of the Hundred Eyes? Clearly one of the cherubim letting off some steam. (Although really it should have been Argus of the Thousand Eyes, but there were limits to how much the human mind could comprehend.) A glimpse of a winged man- or woman-shaped creature soaring in the midnight sky was hardly cause for concern among the populace these days, nor was it even the most fantastical thing that had been seen in Athens.

But familiarity and a lack of alarm also meant a lack of fear, a boldness that men less used to the supernatural would never have demonstrated. And so, one night, as he swooped from the high crags of Mount Lycabettus, an exhilarating, fast, straight shot to the top of the Acropolis, he was watched, and venerated, and doomed. He landed, tipping his head upward to catch the last, lingering whoosh of air whipping past his upturned face and through his unbound hair, on the flat promontory at the front of the plateau, to one side of the small, unassuming Temple of Athena Nike. A group of waiting humans, full of fervor and love for their goddess, seeing the bright, long, windblown hair and shining, night-black wings, burst from the temple, carrying torches and crying out, "Athena! Athena Nike!" They seized him by the shoulders and wings in an odd and wholly human mixture of worship and violence, prostrating themselves before him, kissing his feet, many grasping hands holding his wings fast behind him. All the while, they babbled about how Victory would never leave the city, how blessed they were by Athena's presence.

One of them held aloft a sword, a short, heavy old-fashioned-looking thing. It came alight in his hand, hungry flames crackling along both sharpened edges, far brighter than the torches, and Crowley reeled, struck hard with the force of memory. He had last seen that sword more than three and a half millennia ago, being wielded in the sands outside of Eden. It was a blade freely given away, a blade that kept Adam and Eve alive and warm on those first long, cold nights on the desert sands surrounded by wild beasts, a blade later used by their son to kill his own brother. Double-edged. Righteous intent is all that is necessary to wield such a weapon; despite the sword's Heavenly origins, morality, be it good or evil, does not enter into the equation at all.

The crowd was chanting now, "_Athena apteros! Athena apteros!_" Suddenly everything began to move very fast and very slow at the same time. They dragged him to the front of the temple, where there was still a dark stain on the earth from the sacrificial wine that had been poured there earlier in the day. Through the pillars that flanked the open door, he could see the dull red light of the sacred fire, and smell its heavy, resinous smoke. The flame of the sword flared up, blinding, holy; he could not see for the light. The place inside him where his demonic powers resided felt very remote, walled off and inaccessible. They pulled his wings out roughly, ten men to a side, holding them taut and spreading them from pinion to pinion to their full wingspan. A few black feathers came loose where they were pulled the wrong way, and drifted slowly down to the ground. He felt a biting, sharp, undefinable pain as the blade came down, once, twice. It was a weapon originally made for Holy War, to wound and maim demons, in a way that no blade made by humans could ever hope to accomplish. The sword sliced cleanly through feathers, tendons, bone; it burned through multiple dimensions all at the same time, and his wings fell away, first the right and then the left in rapid succession. They hit the ground not with the expected, heavy thump of feathers and flesh, but with a sizzling, hissing sound like a great release of pressure, accompanied by a hot, phosphorescent flash of brilliant light, before vanishing entirely. It smelled of burning sulfur mixed with the sharp, acrid tang of oxidized wine.

A sharp, bright pain blazed on either side of Crowley's spine. There was no blood, nor ichor, at least not in the Earthly plane. An overwhelming deluge of emotions emanating from his attackers assaulted his occult senses, which were sharpened almost unbearably by the pain: lust, righteousness, devotion, and madness, all jumbled irretrievably together, clamorous and explosive.

The pain was a hot, visceral red, and blinding silver-bright, and the frigid black of nothingness all at once; it poured from his wounded back and bled into many dimensions like an icy smoke, flooding his vision and forcing him to his hands and knees. He scrabbled against the dry soil and cold stones, dust swirling up and settling, thick and choking, in his mouth and lungs. There was a high, keening noise halfway between a shriek and a hiss that he only slowly realized was coming from himself. He could not hold on to his human form; his eyes, weeping with dust and pain and rage, went full yellow, the irises expanding into every available space and the pupils contracting into needle-fine slits, as if keeping the light out could lessen the pain. The coils of his hair writhed and fused into a flaring hood. His torso collapsed into sinuous coils, skin shimmered into scales, and the long bones of his arms and legs rearranged and segmented into extra vertebrae. He opened his mouth and let out an incoherent, sibilant stream of hisses through rapidly lengthening, pointed fangs. The sound was still too high-pitched, too close to a scream, too wounded, to be a proper serpentine hiss, and was all the more uncanny for it. In the torchlight, the serpent's eyes glowed a burning gold and venom dripped from his fangs. The men, all two dozen of them, turned tail and ran, stumbling across the dusty, uneven ground. The sword fell from the nerveless hands of the man who had moments before been brandishing it with self-assured righteousness. The flames guttered and went dark as it clattered onto the stones, forgotten and lost in the panicked scuffle that followed.

The pain of his severed wings was less sharp, less acutely real, in his serpent form, which ran largely on instinct and was never meant to have flight; nevertheless, amidst the anguish, terror, and incoherent rage, he felt the absence of something vital, a cold emptiness like a black hole, both gaping and suffocating. He reared up, flaring his hood, and hissed vehemently once more at the retreating backs of the mob before slithering away across the stones and down the steep side of the mountain; it was easier at the moment to allow the serpent's base animal instincts (shelter, survival) to take over, rather than to try to hold on to more complex thoughts of betrayal and revenge and despair.

  
Dawn found him coiled up, still in serpent form, inside a small, rocky cave midway down a steep cliff on the north face of the Acropolis mount. The humans rarely came to this side of the mountain, as the terrain here was arid and inhospitable, full of vertiginous, treacherous drops and prone to sudden, deadly rockslides. It was a place to bury the dead, in tombs carved out of the numerous natural caves and marked with cypress trees twisted into odd shapes by the winds, and for the living to withdraw into themselves. They said that the gateways to the underworld could be found in caves like these, and that the journey there was long and arduous for the living[5].

This cave was just a cave. No bones or ghosts, no stairway to Hell. It was cold inside the deepest recesses, where the sun did not reach, even in the daytime, and he was glad for it: his cold-blooded reptilian body was sluggish and slow to react, which served to mute and distract from, at least a little, the overwhelming waves of panic and pain. It was better to remain chilled and numb; it was better to shiver than to burn. Nobody came to bother him: the general air of malevolence and ill will emanating subconsciously from a demon in distress was more than sufficient to ensure that he was not disturbed by any humans for many weeks, and the wild animals that lived among the boulders and scrubby bushes knew by instinct that the cave was occupied by a higher and infinitely more dangerous order of predator than the ordinary wolves or wildcats.

He knew that discorporation was not really a risk: Heavenly blades were meant to wound permanently on the spiritual plane, not the earthly. Unlike damage to his human corporation, however, the maiming he had suffered could not easily be reversed by the simple expedient of miracle or the somewhat more complicated but still ultimately achievable filling out of the correct forms in triplicate. He lay huddled on the stones, half delirious, shifting inadvertently between serpent and human forms, sometimes half one and half the other, a jumble of scales, hair, limbs, fangs, bones, cartilage, flesh that did not come together to form any sort of logical whole. A nightmare creature, beset by nightmares. The air, cold though it was, felt too heavy, a weight pressing him down ever closer to Hell, with its stuffy, mildewed halls and lack of anything resembling a breeze. He had nightmares, or visions, or memories, of Falling, which had been longer but not nearly as painful.

The difference was, after the long, long plummet, after the sulphur bath and the odorous, oozing muck, after the hellfire, there had been Earth on the other side. The difference was that, after he had Fallen, it had turned out that he hadn’t lost anything he couldn’t bear to lose. He'd still been essentially himself afterwards, possibly even more so, distilled to a dark, fire-polished smoothness. He would trade the cool sterility of Heaven, the imperious archangels, the insistence on blind obedience, any day for what he had found on the other side: not Hell, but an Earth full of green, growing things, a sky full of stars, and one worthy adversary.

This, though, this was different. There was a part of himself that was irrevocably _gone_ now, and he thought it might have been the best part of him.

He wondered if Aziraphale would notice his absence and come looking, but he never appeared, which was both a relief and a deep disappointment. He knew that Aziraphale had been called to Egypt on an assignment some weeks earlier, but the angel had, as always when talking about work, been evasive and close-lipped, and so Crowley had no idea what he was doing there or how long he planned to remain. He did not know whether he could have handled the angel's pity when faced with his abasement and shame, and yet he yearned for Aziraphale's cool hand on his brow, the soft, heavy weight of his white wings blanketing his aching body, the balm of the angelic, beloved presence upon his bleeding soul. He dreamt of Aziraphale's hands, threading through the feathers of wings that were no longer there. The dreams inevitably took a darker turn, the gentle fingers metamorphosing into dozens of grasping human hands that held him fast against the ground and dragged him down into the center of the earth, through strata of choking, dusty limestone and crushing, dense marble and scalding, molten lava. Each time, he awoke hissing, with a sharp, throbbing phantom ache and the sear of burning lashes across his back.

He did not know for certain how much time passed, days or weeks or months, when he came back to himself, or at least became aware of the outside world once more. Eventually the psychic battering had calmed, possibly because he had unconsciously built up some scar tissue to protect himself; he now felt a dull, aching tightness in the back muscles and cauterized, dead-end nerves that still insisted on remembering how to move a weight that no longer existed, rather than a shrieking, insistent, incoherent pain. He emerged from his cave, stumbling and shaky, in human form, with two long, smooth, silvery scars on either side of his spine, his bright hair trimmed short and hidden under a hooded cloak. He stumbled down the rocky path, his center of balance inexorably changed, even in the human world where his wings had the vast majority of the time not been corporeal. He felt their absence as a missing counterweight, and he had to fight the constant urge to fall forward on his hands and knees, to lay on his face with a mouth full of dirt while the world spun dizzily around him.

Aziraphale was nowhere to be found, and there was no trace of lingering angelic presence, suggesting that he had not been resident in the city for some time.

While he had been convalescing in the cave, the people had been busy. Two large patches of the chalky, crumbling limestone surface in front of the Temple of Athena Nike had inexplicably turned into marble overnight, smooth and cold, pure white shot through with dark, wispy veins. Each was an odd, asymmetrical, high-arched shape, ragged along the concave side and smooth along the convex, that reminded some people of a teardrop, or a scythe, or half of a broken heart. The priests were calling it a miracle, a sign of Athena's regard, a blessing.

The sculptors had removed the wings from the wooden statue of Nike in the sanctuary, carefully sanding them down until there was nothing left but smooth scars and memories, and the priests were busy building new mythologies. _Nike apteros_, they named her, Wingless Victory. Deprive Victory of her wings and she will remain forever in the city, or so their new mythologies claimed. They did not expound on how one actually rendered Victory wingless, whether they were given freely or taken by force. It was all too bloody, too messy, too morally complicated, to make a good story. There was no mention of flaming swords or shrieking serpents.

There was strife, of course, between those who argued that Victory was not Victory if she was shackled and wingless, and those who wanted to bind her to their city forever, by whatever means necessary. The faction that agitated fanatically for Wingless Victory were in fact a small but vocal minority: the majority of depictions of Nike, both in the city and outside of it, retained their wings. But just because some or even most of the people were on his side did not bring his wings back, nor did they erase the pain and humiliation that were still all too fresh.

They should have known that terror and pain are no way to bind a demon, or a goddess.

In those first days, Crowley was plagued with dreams of flying, the wind, sharp and alive, threading its way through his pinfeathers, his wings suddenly vanishing mid-air in a blaze of holy fire, and it was Falling, Falling, Falling all over again. He would awake drenched in cold sweat, his shoulder blades burning and the bedclothes tangled tight and strangling around his limbs, the weight of nothingness pressing down on his back.

He knew that the humans that night had believed that they were doing something good for their city, that they were protecting it, ensuring that Victory would never abandon them. Aziraphale's sword would never have come alight for them unless they had truly believed in the righteousness of their act. They were foolish and shortsighted, yes, but not truly, in the end, evil; then again, good and evil are concepts for the celestial and the occult, not for humanity, not really.

He didn’t think about revenge. There was no point. He’d lived long enough, seen enough of Hell, to know that revenge accomplished nothing, would not reverse the damage done. In any case, his attackers were human. They’d live out the brief handful of their mortal years, and then go to Hell or Heaven. It was a tossup at this point which way they’d go. Maimed a demon, on the one hand; engaged in wild bloodlust, on the other. They'd get what was coming to them, either way. Down to an eternity of torment, or up to an eternity of boredom. Take your pick.

In the meantime, he’d remain here on earth, in his broken, maimed, incomplete body. He might have no taste for revenge, but self-pity was a different story altogether. He thought that a change of scenery might help, somewhere where no one knew or worshipped or hated or loved him, somewhere where he could be nobody, for a while at least. And so Crowley went to Rome, and so Athena left the city named after her, and so Victory, wingless, nevertheless slipped away, quietly, into the night.

In Rome, a city whose mythologies tended toward wolves, war, abandoned children, and fratricide, Athena was called Minerva, and she was colder, more martial, more stern. She reminded Crowley of a warrior of Heaven, the Archangel Michael perhaps. She was never depicted with red hair or with a devilish upturn of her lips. Her eyes were still bright, but shone silver-grey instead of molten gold.

In Rome, his red hair signified nothing, and he took to wearing darkened lenses to hide his gold-coin eyes, and it was a relief to be anonymous. He did not know what this city, this sea, this geography, looked like from the stratosphere; the arrangement of the stars in their constellations and orbits was the same, of course, but subtly shifted by latitude and longitude, enough so that he could pretend that it was an entirely different sky, one meant only to be gazed upon from the ground. The sight of every mountaintop here was not overlaid with the remembered view of an aerial approach; the sound of his footsteps on every boulevard here was not echoed in his mind by Aziraphale's footfalls in time with his own. He slept, for the most part, without dreaming.

He licked his wounds and grew his scar tissue in peace, laying low and performing only the weakest of temptations for some years. The higher-ups in Hell were preoccupied around this time with numerous credible rumors that Heaven was planning something Big in the next couple of centuries[6], and so did not bother to harass him for the most part. Whenever he felt the telltale psychic twinge that always heralded Aziraphale's presence, he was overcome with the irrational fear that the angel would look upon him with his storm-sky eyes and somehow be able to see that his wings were gone. Logic dictated that this was impossible, given that he himself could not see anyone's hidden wings or lack thereof, not as a demon and not when he had still been an angel[7], and yet he abruptly became industrious at those times, suddenly finding urgent temptations that required traveling far abroad immediately.

He told himself that the siege and subsequent brutal conquest of Athens by the Romans in 86 B.C. meant nothing to him, although he couldn't resist paying careful attention to the news and rumors brought by the returning armies. Some claimed that a glowing figure in white had miraculously softened the blows of Roman hammers and guttered the rampaging flames within the Parthenon and the Erechtheion, saving many of the friezes and statues, including _Athena Parthenos_; the Athenians who still kept faith said that it was a gift of Athena and that she had not abandoned them after all. The wooden statue of Nike Apteros, however, burnt completely, and left nothing behind but dark ash in the wind and blackened soot-stains on the white marble walls of the sanctuary.

The spring atop the Acropolis, the one that the stories said that Athena had seized from Poseidon and changed into sweet, fresh water, grew salty as the Flooded sea the night Crowley lost his wings, and ran utterly dry the day he left the city. The olive tree remained where it was, and continued to produce fruit, and it was bountiful in some years and meager in others. It had been there since before a snake had decided to take a nap in its branches and it was, after all, just a tree, nothing magical or miraculous about it.

* * *

[4]Nobody had bat wings, though. That's vampires, not demons, and vampires aren't real. Where the Almighty had gotten the idea for bats will always be a mystery. return to text

[5]Although there might indeed be an entrance to Downstairs somewhere in those caves, nobody ever used it, as far as Crowley knew. There are far easier, indeed even comfortable, ways to go to Hell (for example, escalators instead of interminable flights of uneven, narrow stairs); it does not serve Lucifer's purposes at all to make it difficult to get there. return to text

[6]Possibly some kind of ambitious building project as there had been much talk of carpenters. return to text

[7]This logic is effectively correct, although there is technically a loophole. While angels (and demons) do not come standard equipped with metaphysical X-ray vision, Aziraphale could in theory have given himself the ability via miracle if he'd truly wanted to, but that would have been an unforgiveable invasion of privacy that he would never have countenanced. return to text

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes on mythology and history referenced in Chapter 2:
> 
> Nike is the personification of Victory in the Greek pantheon, and is often closely associated with the goddess Athena. She is usually depicted with wings, such as in the famous Winged Victory of Samothrace statue in the Louvre. However, in the city of Athens, she was sometimes depicted without wings and known as Nike Apteros ("Wingless Victory"); the belief was that, without wings, Victory would never be able to leave Athens. There is a small temple on the Acropolis devoted to Nike Apteros, which in ancient times contained a now-lost wooden cult statue of a wingless Nike.
> 
> Athens was besieged and conquered by the Romans in 86 B.C.


	3. Chapter 3

**Constantinople, 1801**

"Master Crowley," said the ubiquitous, low-ranking demon, who was dressed entirely in ragged black and had his hair teased into two strange, horn-like points. "You rang for a courier?"

"See to it that this is delivered to Lord Elgin immediately."

Crowley thrust a folded piece of paper, secured with a large, ostentatious, ornate seal of red wax, into the minor demon's hands. The paper was an official writ that allowed Lord Elgin, who was currently serving as the British envoy to the Ottoman Empire, to examine and make copies of the monuments of the Acropolis of Athens. Crowley had written it himself, figuring that it was just another official document that people would glance at and forget. He'd made it vague, in part because he enjoyed the frustration engendered when people tried to perform textual analysis to figure out the original intent behind wording that had no deeper meaning other than to sound cool and mysterious, but mostly because he had not felt like brushing up on his Ottoman legalese. The seal was, in all respects except for perhaps a faint, residual smell of brimstone instead of beeswax, a perfect replica of the Ottoman Sultan's personal insignia, although the Sultan had never actually seen Lord Elgin's request, much less granted him any sort of permission to do anything at all in occupied Athens. (The Sultan, like many people, found Elgin to be a pushy, self-important man with a very British air of cultural superiority, and one of the benefits of being the highest authority in the Empire was that he could foist such unpleasant people off on people with less authority.) Crowley could, of course, have actually gone and tempted the Sultan or the Grand Vizier into producing an authentic document, but it was so much easier to avoid all the tiresome politicking and endless court events and just spend a couple of hours writing the thing himself. He'd justify taking the lazy way out by saying that it was more disruptive this way: it was always possible that the forgery could come to light later, resulting in suspicion and dissent. Moreover, there was only the single copy, and, as any lowly paper-pusher who'd ever so much as been in the same room as Dagon could tell you, important forms should always be produced in duplicate (or, ideally, triplicate) for verification purposes.

"Yes, sir, Master Crowley," said the demon, with an ingratiating half-bow, "We'll have it there lickety-split."

Crowley shut the door unceremoniously on the annoying little demonic messenger, who was for some reason giggling to himself, and took himself to bed, silently congratulating himself on a job well done, a temptation subtly accomplished with a minimum of effort. He figured that after a pleasant, restorative week or so of napping, he might spend a few more days in Constantinople, enjoying the warm weather, before heading back to chilly, damp England. Perhaps he would pick up some of the candied figs that he knew Aziraphale loved. Come to think of it, he'd seen some beautiful hand-woven carpets in the bazaar, which would look perfectly at home in Aziraphale's new bookshop, with its grand, Byzantine oculus at the apex of the central room.

But, because Hell knew exactly how to ruin a good time and because evil never sleeps, he was instead rudely awakened at far too early an hour the following morning. They didn't even have the common courtesy to let him sleep for a single day. It was quite the unpleasant surprise to open his bleary eyes to find a cloud of huge bluebottle flies buzzing insistently around his head. They flew in dizzy circles, their multitude of iridescent bodies reflecting disorienting facets of early morning sunlight like broken mirrors; he fervently wished that Beelzebub did not always feel compelled to send an entire swarm of the things, when one or two would do just fine[8]

"The Englizzzhman, Lord Elgin," they buzzed, a thousand voices surrounding his head, "he izzz nearly ourzzz. He will cauzzze great and gloriouzzz zzztrife and controverzzzy that will lazzzt for yearzzz. He will take and take and take. But we need to be zzzure."

"I've sent him the paperwork," muttered Crowley, squeezing his eyes shut and pressing the heels of his hands into them, hard. He felt less dizzy when he could not see the swarm, but it did not prevent the buzzing from vibrating down the length of his spine in an unpleasantly shivery way, and he felt the old scars along his shoulder blades tighten instinctively in response. "Brilliantly clever wording, if I do say so myself. What more do you want from me?"

"You will go," they insisted, "to Athenzzz, and zzzee thizzz temptation through to itzzz end. He muzzzt take what he thinkzzz izzz hizzz right. We've had word that Heaven izzz interezzzted in Elgin too. You are to zzzee that he izzz ourzzz, all the way to the gloriouzzz end. Thizzz one izzz important, Crowley. Hizzz actionzzz will have conzzzequencezzz far beyond hizzz lifetime."

The swarm, its message delivered, flew off, directly through the wall, ignoring the conveniently open window five feet away. Crowley fell forward, buried his face in the pillow, and groaned aloud. His head was aching, his ears were ringing, his hands were shaking, and he had no choice but to go back to Athens.

* * *

**Athens, a few weeks later**

Crowley stood on the deck of the Ottoman merchant ship as it sailed around Cape Sounion and north along the coast. The countryside grew more and more familiar, starting with the now-crumbling and mostly deserted temple of Poseidon lonely on the southernmost promontory and progressing into small fishing villages along the rocky seashore. The area around Athens looked somewhat different now, with a greater density of buildings and what appeared to be new, ugly military fortifications scattered here and there. It was cluttered and dull and lacking some of the white marble grace he remembered, but the scrubby hills dotted with twisted olive trees and the specter of the Acropolis in the distance as they drew near to port were still familiar enough to make him involuntarily draw his shoulders inward in remembered agony.

It really wasn’t necessary to the temptation of Lord Elgin that he oversee it in person, reflected Crowley bitterly. He’d met the man himself on several occasions in London and Constantinople, and knew without a doubt almost from the very beginning that he’d land firmly in Hell, and that he’d do as Hell wished without any further personal interference from Crowley. Perhaps he'd even exceed their expectations, having human ingenuity on his side. But that was the problem with his employers: they didn’t understand that you didn’t have to see each and every project through in person to the bitter end. They didn’t grasp that if you set the wheels turning at the right speed and momentum, it was almost inevitable that certain things would turn out the way they did, that human nature did most of the work for you if you just gave it a little nudge. Hell was, instead, a big fan of the hands-on approach. The personal touch, they called it; Crowley thought it had less to do with artistry than with the unshaken belief that most high-ranking demons had in their own self-importance.

Most of the time Crowley got away with his unorthodox methods – they were generally satisfied enough with his results that they didn’t question his process or look too closely into just exactly how much actual work he was doing. And yet this time he'd been given a direct order to go to Athens in person. He knew that he could not refuse such a simple and straightforward assignment, not without arousing suspicion. Lord Beelzebub, and everyone else in Hell, had never found out about his lost wings, and he needed to keep it that way.

Enough demons had lost all or part of their wings during the first War in Heaven that it was considered very gauche down below to talk about or display them in public[9]. (This, of course, meant that there were certain troublemaking demons who constantly brought up the subject and flapped their own wings in people's faces just to provoke fights. Hell had finally put a stop to this practice by threatening to refuse to process applications for new corporations for anyone who got themselves discorporated in this manner.) Most of the demons who still had their wings rarely manifested them in public Down There in any case, as the crowded, low-ceilinged chambers and damp, squalid atmosphere of the common areas[10] were not exactly conducive to twenty-foot wingspans. Additionally, feathers didn't work properly if they got too coated in crude oil, or demonic ichor, or whatever that mysterious, dark, sticky goo on the walls actually was, and cleaning it off one's wings was blessedly difficult. (One could, in a pinch, use a demonic miracle to render them functional again, but that was no substitute for proper preening. No self-respecting demon would ever go about without perfectly groomed wings, even if nobody else was ever going to see them.) Still, even though nobody displayed their wings these days, there was a certain unspoken hierarchy between those who _had _and those who _had not_, and Crowley was determined to stay in the former category; his standing in Hell was always precarious, and he didn't want to give his detractors any more reason to knock him down.

The ship docked at the port of Aslan Liman, some few leagues from Athens. It was striking to him how quiet the port was; he remembered it, when it had been called Piraeus, as a bustling, busy town, full of humans and animals and purpose, and now it was quiet and almost deserted, with only a few ships in port and one or two sailors milling about. The bells of the monastery on the hill nearby rang out, indicating that it was midday. It took him only a few minutes to find himself alone, in a narrow alley between an unstaffed customs house and an abandoned storage building. He contemplated briefly going to look for a horse or carriage for hire, decided that he'd been traumatized enough for the day, and snapped his fingers, reappearing in a similar alley in the Plaka of Athens.

Here, in contrast to the port, the streets were busy with activity, people going about their ordinary midday business, although there was still the underlying sense of tension and simmering unease that one so often felt in occupied cities. That mood was, to Crowley's demonically tuned senses, still too quiet and green to turn into any real conflict. It would have been easy for him to prod at that simmering tension and fan it into flame, but that was not what he was here for, and he didn't plan to spend any more time in Athens than he had to.

A few casual queries to passerby were sufficient to ascertain that the recently-arrived English ambassador, Lord Elgin, and his retinue were to be found atop the Acropolis mount, where they were surveying the monuments. He sighed and began the long trudge up the hill, which was as steep and winding and dusty as he remembered.

He'd briefly entertained the thought of asking Aziraphale to take this assignment for him under the quid pro quo terms of the Arrangement; the angel did still owe him one from Paris eight years ago. And yet he hadn't asked, couldn't bring himself to broach the subject of Athens, didn't want to open himself up to questions and reminiscences of when they'd last been there together. He'd avoided Aziraphale for many years, centuries even, after fleeing Athens. When they eventually crossed paths again, it was at a place where neither wanted to be, but which was too important to be absent from; Golgotha was no place for small talk and thus they had avoided the awkward conversation of what they'd been up to in the intervening years. Ten years later, over wine and oysters in Rome, Aziraphale did not ask about Athens, and Crowley did not offer; and so it had gone, ever since. His reluctance to reveal to Aziraphale what had happened was far different than his unwillingness to share the same news with Hell, and he did not understand it fully himself. It had something to do with the complicated and confusing tangle of his own feelings regarding shame and pity and self-worth and love. He thought that Aziraphale might be understanding, and kind, and righteously angry even, and knew that he would not be condescending, or cruel, or triumphant, but the prospect of telling him was daunting and terrible nonetheless.

And so of course, he thought with a tired resignation, here was Aziraphale himself, standing a little to the right and behind Lord Elgin, looking proper and pristine despite the heat in a long beige linen tailcoat, a high-necked ruffled shirt, and a fitted cream waistcoat. His white-gold hair shone in the midday sun.

Crowley himself was dressed in a black linen shirt, open at the neckline, and dark trousers, plain but well-made. His hair, a little longer than shoulder length, was tied back practically and respectably with a simple, unadorned band. He'd used a bit of a demonic miracle to insert himself into the Englishman's retinue; Elgin was under the impression that Crowley was a Greek merchant whom he'd hired to act as a local interpreter.

"Ah, you're the new interpreter, then," said Lord Elgin, "Excellent. What is your name, good man?"

"Erichthonius," said Crowley, with a sudden burst of inspiration. He spared a sideways glance for Aziraphale, who raised a pale eyebrow ever so slightly, but said nothing.

"Very good," said Lord Elgin, offhandedly, "Eric."

He turned away to examine something on the façade of the building behind him. Crowley bit his lip and tried not to show his irritation. _Eric _and _Erichthonius _were most decidedly not the same thing: _Eric _was a generic, disposable, unremarkable name, while _Erichthonius _was, as anyone familiar with the history of the Acropolis should certainly know, the Serpent of Athens, the only one of his kind, and the namesake of the very building, the Erechtheion, that they stood in front of.

Having been thus more or less summarily discounted, Crowley, still fuming inwardly at Elgin's boorish ignorance, was free to inspect his surroundings. The Acropolis, not surprisingly, looked significantly different than it had the last time he'd seen it. The olive tree, which had stood at the north end of the plateau for millennia, was gone now. There was instead a fortified, circular stone tower on the promontory where it had been, from which a guard on duty could see for miles around. The Temple of Athena Nike at the opposite end had been razed to the ground, only the square of its foundation remaining to mark its former location. Thick piles of rubble lay strewn across what had been its porch, obscuring the two wide, arched slabs of marble that had formed where his wings had fallen. The other structures – the Erechtheion and the Parthenon, and the great gate at the approach to the plateau- still stood in various states of dilapidation. They'd built a small mosque within the boundaries of the ruined and roofless Parthenon, the round dome and curved archways a strange and incongruous juxtaposition against the tall, straight columns.

The whole place was dusty and devoid of the bright colors that had adorned it in the past, and had an ageworn, weary feel to it. Everywhere there were slabs of marble and crumbled columns that lay where they had fallen, whether by time or neglect or deliberate destruction. For a moment, Crowley thought he could understand how ancient and distant such a place would seem to humans, with their fleeting lives. The Acropolis of two thousand years ago was very different from the one he stood upon now; so too, it felt as though the person he had been back then, flying carefree on the updrafts and thermals, playing at being a goddess, had gone so far away as to be irretrievable.

* * *

They sat side by side on a wooden bench on a rooftop terrace somewhere down one of the narrow, ubiquitous winding streets of the Plaka, in the shadow of the Acropolis. It was long past the dinner hour, and one of them, he wasn't sure who, had changed the sickly sweet ouzo into a much more palatable (and, incidentally, far stronger) single-malt Scotch. Bougainvillea vines heavy with red blossoms spilled down the whitewashed wall behind them, and owls hooted in the distance. The night air was warm, and seemed a little hazy, although he wasn't sure whether that was from the humidity or the alcohol. He watched as Aziraphale picked up an olive, purple-black, smooth, and shining with oil, between his thumb and forefinger, and popped it into his mouth; he watched the slow movement of his jaw as he chewed, the way he pursed his lips to spit out the pit into his hand. It was such a human action, but somehow more languidly slow, like the flow of honey, sweet and smooth, when the angel did it. It was almost a shock when Aziraphale spoke; although Crowley craved the sound of the angel's voice, he could have done without the inevitable talk about their opposing sides, their jobs, the realities of their immortal lives.

"Heaven thinks he's important. For God and country, they say. Everything he's doing. I don’t know why they're bothering. It's so clear that he's one of yours. Dreadful man. It would take a massive miracle to change that, and I'm not authorized for such things."

"You wouldn't do it anyway, angel."

Aziraphale did not contradict him. Instead, after a pause, he asked, "When was the last time you were here, in Athens?"

"Not since Classical times," he admitted, "It's been a while."

"The city must seem very different to you now," mused Aziraphale, then added with a hint of something – drunken wistfulness, perhaps – in his voice, "You disappeared quite abruptly back then, you know. I came back from Egypt and you were gone. I thought for a while you'd come back, but you never did."

"Things got … busy. You know how it is, angel, with work and all," lied Crowley.

If Aziraphale noticed that he sounded a bit choked, he did not say anything, but instead hummed noncommittally and made an innocuous comment about the Scotch. They drank for a while in a silence that was not entirely comfortable but still companionable enough. It was more than he could have hoped for, in this city full of ghosts and lost things. He closed his eyes and slouched against the wall, and let himself imagine that they were sitting on the same rooftop two thousand years earlier, the night full of wings and possibilities. But then, he thought, he wouldn't have had oysters in Rome, or Hamlet in the sixteenth century, or Aziraphale in lace and silk in the Bastille; he wouldn't have had this evening, right now. This was not a line of thought that he could handle with an empty glass in his hand. He opened his eyes and sat up, too quickly. He reached dizzily for the bottle between them, overshot, and fell forward, right into Aziraphale.

Aziraphale caught him with surprising steadiness, given that he must have been almost as drunk as Crowley. His hands were warm around Crowley's shoulders; they brushed across his back and swept unknowingly over the ghosts of old wounds. Crowley tensed, sitting up ramrod straight and dislodging Aziraphale's grip, and sobered up so quickly that he flinched. His sunglasses hid the momentary dilation of his pupils but could not mask the grimace across his forehead.

“Is everything all right, dear boy?”

“Ngk... yes! Yes, of course. Just forgot something is all. Forgot, um, I have to go ... go tempt someone. Yes! Very important temptation. Must go. Now.”

“Crowley....”

The look in Aziraphale’s eyes was soft, and nakedly concerned, and something else Crowley couldn’t identify. His voice became crisper, more precise; Crowley was familiar enough with its cadences in various states of inebriation that he knew Aziraphale had just sobered up as well. “Are you quite all right, dear? You're shaking.”

"Just sobered up too quickly. Nothing to worry about, angel. I really have to go.”

“Are you certain? I could... I suppose I could take this one for you, if you wanted to rest.”

"No! I mean, no, it's fine. I'll be fine."

Crowley got up and bolted down the spiral staircase to the courtyard below, stumbling a little even though he was now completely sober. He stared resolutely at the ground as he made his way into the darkened street. He was certain that if he looked up, he'd see Aziraphale's pale, moonlit face peering over the balcony edge, and he did not want to know if that gentle look had turned into pity.

* * *

They had been some months in Athens, while Lord Elgin grew more and more brazen with his activities at the Acropolis. What had begun as a project to document the sculptures and reliefs of the Parthenon and the Erechtheion had rapidly turned into a spate of greedy acquisition. Crowley had ample cause now to regret not having run the document he'd written months ago by Dagon[11], who would never have allowed the loophole that Elgin had exploited to justify his haphazard dismantling of the buildings. Instead of making the drawings and rubbings and casts that they'd originally been hired to do, Elgin's team of so-called artists were now busily engaged in removing the statuary and pediments and friezes from the temples. Many of them already lay, sometimes in pieces, inside large wooden crates, ready to be shipped back to Elgin's estate in Scotland.

Crowley did not perform any temptations upon Lord Elgin. It was clearly unnecessary, as he'd known from the beginning it would be: Elgin, true to his greedy, grasping nature, was acting perfectly infernally all on his own. Crowley would probably get a commendation for it; the thought did nothing to ease the hollow feeling in his stomach as he watched the men chisel and saw and raze and destroy.

Although Lord Elgin had conveniently forgotten that he had hired a local interpreter[12], Crowley nevertheless came to the Acropolis nearly daily, because Aziraphale was usually to be found there. Elgin and the others knew the angel as Lord Fell, English nobleman, bookshop proprietor[13], and scholarly expert on Ancient Greek art and architecture. It was true that he was more well-versed in the subject than anyone else there, having personally observed many of the events that everyone else considered ancient history. Nevertheless, his advice to be prudent and pleas to be careful with the priceless artifacts were routinely discounted by Lord Elgin, who continued to carry on exactly as he pleased.

Being in Athens, and on the Acropolis most of all, still put Crowley somewhat on edge, still prickled the long-dormant nerves along the length of his spine. Aziraphale also seemed tense most of the time, the lines between his brows a little more deep than usual, the set of his jaw a little more tight. And yet, they met here nearly daily, in the shadow of the crumbling columns of the Parthenon, under the rickety scaffolding that had been erected around it. For the most part, they merely observed the proceedings, although Crowley occasionally performed small demonic acts of mischief out of boredom or spite. For example, one of Elgin's cronies spent half a day struggling to extract a gold coin that Crowley had embedded in a broken marble column; when he'd finally managed to free it from the stone, he was baffled to find that it was a modern Venetian ducat, albeit a very dirty one[14].

He'd asked Aziraphale why, when it was patently obvious that Elgin would not listen to his counsel, he still kept coming back here to watch something that he clearly found distressing. Aziraphale had replied that someone should be there to bear witness, to observe and to remember. Crowley did not think that he was doing so at Heaven's behest, even if Heaven had sent him here originally.

Aziraphale did not ask why Crowley was doing the same, but if he had, Crowley would have said that he was just doing his job, even though they both would have known it to be a lie. The truth was that here, standing next to Aziraphale, not a hundred paces from where Crowley had lost his wings, was the only place in this whole blessed city that he felt that tightly wound, serpentine thing inside of him loosen and uncoil. The truth was that when he was with Aziraphale was the only time he didn't feel the urge to always put walls at his back. The truth was that he craved the feeling he got when he was near Aziraphale, that sense of the lingering resonance of a plucked high note. The truth was that he still wanted Aziraphale to save him.

On this particular day, they stood side by side in the shade of the columns along the northern side of the Parthenon, looking inward toward the east, where the statue of Athena Parthenos stood, nearly as tall as the exterior columns. The roof had long since fallen in, the wooden beams rotted and the marble tiles carried away for salvage, so he could see bits of the midday sky, drifting with high clouds, above her helmet. Worn by wind and water and fire and time through the centuries, her aspect was softened, pale, and colorless. All of the gilt was gone, every last bit of gold scraped away years and years ago. The things that had been solid gold – the tip of the spear, the wings of Victory – were absent altogether, almost certainly the first things to be stolen once time had mellowed the once-great fear of Olympian wrath. He wondered if Aziraphale remembered when this statue had had a snake painted on her cheek, when her eyes had been bright with gold, whether he'd ever made the connection.

The faint but unmistakable trace of miracle clung to the statue. If he'd flicked his tongue out, Crowley was sure he could have tasted the distinctive note of Aziraphale's grace where it lingered in the carved ivory grooves of Athena's robes. As it was, he could see how the eyes of Elgin and the workers slipped past the massive statue as if it was just another unremarkable part of the structure behind it, just an unadorned wall without interesting friezes or carvings to covet and hoard.

"Why?" asked Crowley. All of his other questions remained unasked.

"He tried to have one of the caryatids _sawn into pieces_, Crowley," said Aziraphale in a sharp, aghast tone. In a softer voice, he added, "I couldn't bear it if something like that happened to her."

There was a shout somewhere to their left, followed immediately by a loud crashing noise and the sound of stone shattering on impact. Aziraphale winced. From the corner of his eye, Crowley could see that a large portion of the frieze had fallen, knocked loose by some workers who were struggling to remove a neighboring panel. It was a forty foot drop directly onto hard stone.

Aziraphale wrung his hands. “Oh, I do wish they’d be more careful,” he said, his voice trembling. “I made sure it didn’t hit anyone, but I’m afraid the marble is going to be done for. And it was such a lovely carving too.”

Crowley snapped his fingers. All of the many shards and splinters and chunks of marble abruptly decided they much preferred to be a single, solid slab again. The workers, who were still recovering from the shock, stumbled over to the fallen panel, which appeared to have landed on a patch of earth that was soft and wet, even though it had not rained for weeks. It was rather muddy but otherwise none the worse for wear, despite the sound of shattering stone that everyone had clearly heard. Splintered pieces of the wooden scaffolding that it had broken through on the way down lay strewn all around. One or two of the workers could be heard loudly thanking God for the miracle. Nobody had been hurt, the frieze was inexplicably undamaged, and the incident had just saved everyone quite a bit of the backbreaking, tedious work of chiseling out and moving the heavy stone panels.

Lord Elgin, who had been observing from the rise, approached to see what all the fuss was about. Upon being told of the miraculous occurrence, he puffed up like a self-important pigeon, proclaiming that their work here was clearly divinely sanctioned. For God and Country indeed. In a fit of pique, Crowley caused a large chunk of masonry, devoid of any carvings, to fall from the pediment; it landed with an outsized boom mere inches from where Elgin stood, raising a great cloud of fine, chalky limestone dust. Elgin leapt backward and then doubled over coughing, rubbing his eyes and swearing, for several minutes before stomping away. Crowley caught the tail end of a hastily hidden smile at the corner of Aziraphale’s mouth.

"That'll do, I think," said Crowley sardonically. "He's tired of the dust, and the heat, and the unwashed natives. He's got pressing business back in Constantinople to attend to, in any case. He'll leave here before long, and leave the rest of this business to his underlings."

"I suppose then you and I will have no more reason to remain here either. I'll be sad to go," said Aziraphale.

"You can't say you'll miss having to deal with _him,_" said Crowley, gesturing at Elgin.  
  
"Not him. But I'll miss the city. I've always liked it here. The food. The weather. The … company."

Despite everything, Crowley would miss it too.

"It _will _be nice to get back to the bookshop though," mused Aziraphale, "I'd only just gotten it up and running, you know, when I was called out here."

"You'll have to show me, angel," he said, "what you've done with the place."

Aziraphale began to walk away, toward the Propylaea. When he reached the great gateway, he turned and looked back at Crowley.

"Are you coming then?" he asked. "I'm sure we have time for one last lunch together before we have to go."

* * *

[8]They claimed that this was because one should never do anything in moderation when one could do it in excess, but, in reality, it was because they did not want their flies to be lonely without a thousand of their closest friends. return to text

[9]And Satan help you if you offered to be someone's wingman. return to text

[10]Private spaces, if one were of high enough status to have them, were an entirely different story. Probably. But one did not merely waltz into a high-ranking demon's private chambers and expect to come out alive, so this is merely conjecture. return to text

[11]Although his reasons for not doing so were still valid. Namely, Dagon had far more teeth than anybody - angel, human, or demon - should have had, and she was prone to showing them all when she got too indignant over a poorly written contract or improperly filed paperwork. return to text

[12]One unappreciative and patronizing employer was more than enough for Crowley, thank you very much. return to text

[13]English lords, much like angels of the Lord, did not generally run bookshops, but Lord Fell was apparently wealthy and well-respected enough that it was considered a mostly harmless eccentricity by his supposed peers. return to text

[14]Crowley had lifted the coin from the man's own pocket earlier that day and given it a bit of an infernal burnishing with tar and soot. return to text

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes on history referenced in Chapter 3:
> 
> [If you don't already know about the Parthenon Marbles controversy, I encourage you to read up about it and draw your own conclusions, as it is too complicated to really get into here. It touches on a lot of larger issues including cultural appropriation, ownership, nationalism, and preservation of cultural heritage/art. I think it's pretty obvious from this fic what my opinion is.]
> 
> In 1801, Greece had been conquered and ruled by the Ottoman Empire for nearly three hundred years. The Parthenon and other buildings on the Acropolis were appropriated for various military and religious purposes during this time. The temple of Athena Nike was demolished by the Ottomans in the 17th century. (It was later rebuilt after the Greeks won independence.)
> 
> Thomas Bruce, Lord Elgin, who was the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, requested a firman, or official decree, from the Ottoman Empire to allow him and his agents access to the monuments of the Acropolis. The original document no longer exists, and there is much debate about whether it even existed and what, if anything, it actually allowed him to do. In any case, Elgin claimed that it gave him the right to not only study but to remove large portions of the monument, including about half of the Parthenon frieze and one of the caryatids from the Erechtheion, and ship them back to England. Elgin, in typical colonialist fashion, argued that he was saving the marbles from the further decay and destruction that they would surely undergo were they to remain in Greece; ironically, he caused a good deal of damage himself during the removal process. They were eventually sold to the British museum, where they are still on display today. 
> 
> The acquisition of the marbles was controversial almost from the very beginning, even in Elgin's native England, with opposing camps declaring that he was either a looter or a savior, and continues to rage on even today.


	4. Chapter 4

**Athens, 1816**

"I thought I'd go round and see George this evening. He's been living in Italy since that unfortunate business in London this past spring, but I hear he's here in Athens for the next fortnight or so."

"George?"

"George Gordon. I'm sure you've met him in London, you move in the same fashionable circles. You might know him as Lord Byron. He writes the most delightful things. So romantic."

Of course Crowley knew Lord Byron. Everyone did. He had been at once the darling and the cautionary tale of fashionable London society; men and women wanted to be him, wanted to be his lover, wanted to keep him far, far away from their sons and daughters, and, most of all, wanted to watch him fall and fall hard. This last had finally happened, permanently it seemed, only a few months earlier. Lord Byron seemed to court scandal wherever he went, and had been forced to leave England that spring amidst a rain of nasty rumors and a flood of broken hearts. But even though everyone knew of Lord Byron, only his closest friends (and possibly his lovers, Crowley's treacherous mind added) called him _George._

Crowley felt jealousy strike him like a sharp spike in his chest; he was glad of the dark glasses, because he was sure that his eyes had gone fully gold and serpentine for a moment. He bit down hard on his tongue, and it passed for the most part, but couldn't resist saying, "Ah, of courssse. Lord Byron. '_Mad, bad, and dangerous to know.'_ You know he's one of oursss, right?"[15]

Truth be told: Crowley had admired the man, at least before learning just now of his friendship with certain celestial beings. He was not afraid to _live_, to pursue what he wanted, and to delight in earthly pleasures, despite the scorn and accusations of others. And as the originator of the craft, he grudgingly also had to admit that Lord Byron was quite the master of the art of Temptation. All in all, he burned hot and bright, like a phosphorus flame, but flames like that never lasted for long. 

"I had figured," Aziraphale said wistfully but with no real surprise. "All of the best of them are."

* * *

Very late that same night, Crowley stood upon an outcropping of rock at the top of the Acropolis, having demonically influenced his way past the Ottoman soldiers standing guard at the base, and gazed upon remained of the Parthenon. Its roof was gone and great tumbled blocks of marble lay fallen all around. Even in ruins, it dwarfed the round-domed mosque the Ottomans had built inside the boundaries of its grand columns. The great statue of Athena still stood against the inside of one of the shorter walls, unseen and untouched since Aziraphale's intervention fifteen years earlier, her head reaching almost to the base of the pediment. The goddess' face shone ghost-like in the moonlight, all traces of red and black paint long worn away by wind and water and warfare. So, too, the smoothness of just-polished marble had long ago been roughened and pitted with time and neglect. Streaks of ash and soot left over from an earlier brush with fire marked her robes. She looked older, Crowley thought, and sadder, and wiser, or perhaps just more cynical. 

"Crowley."

Crowley startled momentarily at the sound so close to him, but the familiar tenor of the voice quieted his unease almost immediately. Aziraphale had come up beside him, soundlessly, having used a miracle to sneak past the guards. He wore a light-colored jacket and trousers, and his hair and face looked nearly as pale as the marble beneath the moonlight. He carried a slim, gilt-decorated leatherbound book under one arm. 

It was raining steadily, and the worn marble steps up to the propylaea had been slick and treacherous when Crowley had climbed them. Aziraphale’s clothes were dry, as was the book under his arm. The care he took, thought Crowley, for the things he loved. Aziraphale's hair, however, was damp, the white-gold curls plastered wetly to the back of his neck.

Crowley’s own hair was also wet, rainwater sluicing down the sides of his face, the waves weighed down and stretched out by the rain. He ran a hand through it, pulling the wet locks up and away from his forehead. Aziraphale, noticing the motion, murmured, “oh, here, let me.” One swift, small downward sweep of his hand later, and Crowley’s hair was dry, springing up into impeccable, soft waves, exactly as miracle-perfect as he would have made them himself. The still-falling rain now bounced and scattered, as if deflected by an invisible shield, rather than wetting his hair and shoulders again. Aziraphale’s fingertips twitched, once, before he curled them tightly into a fist against his palm. There was a faint, nearly undetectable shimmer, a sort of unintentional leaking of ethereal grace, in the air around him that was gone almost before Crowley could really register it. It was Aziraphale's tell, the thing he did when he forgot himself, much as hissing was Crowley's. The air between them was thick with tension and unspoken things.

"George's latest. It's sublime," Aziraphale said, indicating the volume under his arm. It was perhaps an attempt to defuse the tension as he often did, by talking about books. On this particular occasion, it was less than successful. His breath smelled faintly of wine, and Crowley's imagination immediately supplied him with a vivid image of Aziraphale and Lord Byron sitting close together, sharing a bottle of wine, on a luxurious velvet settee. Their heads, one dark, one light, would be bent together over a book of poetry, Byron reciting aloud in his sensuous voice the _sublime_ lines he had written, Aziraphale's eyes closed in rapture the way they did when he ate something particularly delicious. It had been hours and hours since Aziraphale had gone to go see Byron earlier in the day; the fact that he was carrying the book indicated that he'd spent the entire evening in the poet's company. 

Crowley had himself once been the target, deliberately, of Lord Byron's regard and knew firsthand its strength and allure; he did not wish to think of the man turning those soulful eyes on his angel, seducing him with his pretty face and bloody poetry. He was handsome, too, if one went for the thin, effete, and dramatically brooding sort[16].

Crowley felt hot, dizzy, flush with jealousy; he felt like a dull, creeping, dark thing. True, he'd made stars once, but the creation of celestial bodies, like the creation of poetry or freshwater springs or whatever it took to make Aziraphale call something _sublime,_ required wholeness and a soul not inexorably stained with ashes and severed by betrayal. Angels, pure and shining, made stars, and humans, wild and unfettered, made poetry, and neither was meant for demons, particularly not demons who had lost the ability to fly.

Aziraphale, oblivious, continued talking, gently opening the book as he did so. It smelled of printers' ink and new leather overlaid by a faint whiff of the miracle he had used to keep it dry.

"First edition, of course, for my collection. He was so kind as to inscribe it to me. He's really outdone himself this time. It's already being touted in literary circles as a masterpiece of Romantic poetry. Listen to this: '_She walks in beauty, like the night / Of cloudless climes and starry skies / And all that’s best of dark and bright / Meet in her aspect and her eyes.'_ Isn't that just lovely? He says it's about a woman he met once, two years ago, at a ball and never saw again but could never forget. Can you imagine? She must have been absolutely stunning."

Crowley _could_ imagine all too well, actually. Nearly a year ago, he had been tasked by Hell to secure the soul of London's most promising poet and the darling of high society. He could easily have ignored the assignment altogether, with much the same results, as he had it on good authority that Byron was already well-versed in the enjoyment of any number of sins, although less substantiated rumors had him engaging in still more of them. Even so, Crowley had gone to the ball, because he'd been bored and Aziraphale had been off in America. He'd chosen on a lark to appear as a woman, although, knowing Lord Byron's tastes, a male-presenting form would probably have worked equally well. It was entertaining, once in a while, to put on a pretty dress and put his hair up into an elaborate coiffure that was impossible to achieve without the aid of occult power[17], and to sow chaos with a flash of snowy bosom or well-turned ankle. (He should know: he'd spent far more time than he'd ever admit obsessing over an accidental glimpse of angelic collarbone a few decades earlier, and still had fantasies of brushing his fingers or his lips along it.) Lord Byron was such an aficionado of temptation already, both the giving and the receiving of it, that all it had taken was a coy smile and an intriguing flash of golden irises behind a curtain of dark red hair to inspire lust and, apparently, copious volumes of poetry to lure the best of angels. It had been quite possibly the easiest temptation he'd ever had the displeasure of performing, so, of course, it was some sort of poetic justice that it seemed to have gotten out of hand. He'd never intended for his turn as Byron's _femme fatale_ to be immortalized in Romantic poetry. He supposed it could have been worse – he could have invoked the terms of the Arrangement, and sent Aziraphale in his place to spend yet more time with the man with whom he was apparently familiar enough to call _George._

"Yeah, angel. She really must have been … something."

"I'd have liked to have seen her, I think."

His scars had not bothered him for a long time, but tonight the feel of the chill wind knifing across the flat plateau of the Acropolis and out toward the sea awoke the phantom ache across his back again, unwelcome and sharp. He winced and wished fervently that Aziraphale would stop talking about bloody George. He thought about updrafts, and feathers, and wondered if Aziraphale had flown up here from below, rather than enduring the strenuous climb as he himself had been forced to do. 

They were standing close enough to touch, nearly shoulder to shoulder. He glanced sideways, not turning his head, at Aziraphale's profile. He imagined he could see the hazy outline of white wings, in repose, peaking above his shoulders and dropping gently down against his back in an elegant, classical arch. He had not seen those wings in thousands of years except in dreams, and yet he still knew their fall, their curve, the exact measure of their wingspan, could picture precisely the amount of space that they would occupy. He felt very keenly the emptiness where his own lost wings should have been, could pinpoint where the outermost feathers of Aziraphale's wing would brush up against a hollow, empty space. Here was Aziraphale, a creature of light and air, talking of poetry and beauty and the starry skies; and here was Crowley, forever earthbound, scrabbling in the dirt like a small, blind, crawling thing. 

"They're sending the sculptures and friezes Elgin took to the British Museum," Aziraphale said. "Better there than locked up at his estate up in Scotland, I suppose. George told me that he'd gone to Parliament to lodge a protest – he thinks it was theft, pure and simple."

Crowley did not want to have anything at all in common with Lord Byron, but he had to admit that he was right about Elgin.

"Won't do a lick of good. You know that. When has Parliament ever listened to anyone but themselves?"

"It's the _principle_ of the thing, Crowley. He wrote a poem about it too, although it hasn't been published. He called it _The Curse of Minerva_. He got it wrong though – Minerva was never Athena. Athena came first, and Minerva was only a shadow of the real thing."

"Angel, I doubt anyone cares."

"_I_ care. It diminishes her to call her by the wrong name. She deserves better. She always has." 

"He can write all the poems he wants. It's not going to get them to … what? Give the marbles back? Not going to happen. Hell is considering the whole Elgin affair a job well done, by the way. He's still stirring up trouble, after more than a decade. I'll have to send in an addendum to my report. Angry poets and righteous aristocrats and endless debates in Parliament and so very many incendiary pamphlets." He was striving for flippancy, but couldn't help a thread of bitter sarcasm from leaking through the words. 

"Well, things haven't gone as well for Elgin as he'd have liked. He ran into quite the spot of trouble on his way home from Athens."

"Ah, yes, I'd heard he spent three years in a French prison," drawled Crowley, glancing sideways at Aziraphale. "Serves him right. Do you happen to know anything about that?"

"Dreadful places, French prisons," said Aziraphale. "So drafty."

Aziraphale appeared to be carefully avoiding his eyes, and instead stood looking contemplatively at the ruins of the Erechtheion to their left. Five caryatids still stood at the front, stoically holding up what remained of the pediment of the Porch of the Maidens, the sixth of their number lost across a continent and a sea. An owl hooted from a hidden perch under what was left of the roof, a low, eerie counterpoint to the keening wind. Crowley was reminded of how the people down in the city said that, on quiet nights, you could hear the five remaining caryatids wailing endlessly for their lost sister; it was a new mythology, a ghost story, an indignant elegy. _We all long for the things we have lost,_ he thought. _Or the things we never had. _ Over the sound of the wind and rain, they could hear the steady footfalls of the soldiers keeping watch (and miraculously hearing and seeing nothing out of the ordinary) in the guard tower on the promontory at the far end of the plateau. He remembered when this place was bright and colorful and full of the sounds of life: voices singing, bubbling water, the sacred fire crackling. Not this broken, empty ruin, ghost-white and shattered, burned, voiceless, crumbling into dust.

"War is coming," Aziraphale said eventually, in a soft, steady voice. "Revolution. The Greek people are no longer willing to live under the yoke and the tyranny of the Ottoman Empire."

"I know. That's why I'm here. You know me, always fomenting."

The smoldering disquiet he'd noticed among the citizens of Athens a decade and a half ago had become noticeably louder and more turbulent since then. There had already been some small skirmishes and acts of rebellion both within and without the city. With the combination of his demonic senses and his knowledge of human nature, Crowley judged that it would erupt into full-blown revolution within another decade. He'd mentioned the unrest in his memo to Head Office after the Elgin project was done and dusted, and had made sure to mention the word "revolution" as well; Aziraphale had admitted to doing the same in his memo to Heaven[18]. Hell had been pleased, as far as he could tell; pleased enough, in fact, to send him back to Athens only fifteen years after the last time. At least he hadn't had to do much of anything except lie low and let the humans agitate on their own: the Ottomans drunk on power, the Greeks bristling at every small insult. It would probably be bloody and brutal and inevitable; he hoped to be well away from this place before it began in earnest.

"Easy enough job, to be honest," he said. "Hardly any foment required. They're doing a perfectly bad job on their own." _Which is a relief_, he added to himself but did not have the courage to say out loud to Aziraphale. _And I'd never call on the Arrangement for it__\- war is not a thing for beautiful angels to sully themselves with. _(The irony was not lost on him that Aziraphale had been a soldier once. Once, but no longer, and you didn’t force a sword back into the hand of an angel who’d given his away willingly.) He would be lying, however, if he said that he wished Aziraphale were far away from this place right now; finding the angel already here when he arrived had been the only thing that had made it bearable to be back in this city that was still full of painful memories.

"Whose side are you on?" asked Aziraphale.

"I don't think my side much cares who wins, really, so long as there's unrest," he replied. They both knew that this response was a deflection. 

Aziraphale did not push for the real answer. Instead he said, "I've been trying to convince both sides that there's no need for violence. I'm sure if they just sat down and talked it through, they'd find some common ground. I haven't been getting anywhere though. The Ottoman general here won't even speak to me, and the Greeks just call me naïve."

This naivete, this idealism, this faith in the inherent goodness and high-mindedness of people, be they humans, his fellow angels, or even Crowley himself, was a quality that Crowley found both deeply attractive and deeply frustrating about Aziraphale. He knew without being told that Aziraphale was trying to avert the coming conflict on his own initiative, not because Heaven had told him to. 

"Like I said, angel, no fomenting necessary. This has been a long time coming. I could feel it last time we were here. It's inevitable, probably. Nothing you or I can do about it."

"I know," said Aziraphale, sighing. "And the Greeks don't deserve to be treated like they are. But war is always so terrible. So many people dying for no reason. So much suffering. So much destruction. The two sides have so much in common. It's a pity they can't see past their hatred for each other. The Almighty is still the Almighty, no matter what people name her, no matter which Book they read. No matter what face she wears."

"That's humans for you, angel. So clever and so destructive," said Crowley.

"Is it though? I rather think that it's just a few bad eggs."

He didn’t respond; he didn't really think Aziraphale expected him to. Instead he stared at the crumbling columns and the great gaps in the pediments where chunks of marble had been chiseled off and carried away.

"This place is still beautiful, in its own way, now that it's been used, and broken, and damaged, and loved, and despised," Aziraphale said, gesturing at the weatherworn statues and the pitted columns and the fallen plinths. "More beautiful, even. You can see all the history, all the joy and sadness. How remarkable humans are, to make a thing of such beauty and such sorrow."

Aziraphale's gaze alit on the statue of Athena Parthenos in front of them, the sharp lines of her nose and cheekbones blunted with time. His miracle more than a decade earlier had ensured that Elgin had not attempted to remove the statue and carry it off to England, but it couldn't stop the building from falling down all around her. Two of the protruding figures that adorned her helmet had broken off where they'd been struck by falling debris, leaving behind ragged, uneven scars, and the rest of the statue showed various dents and divots that had not been there before.

"I can't keep her safe here," Aziraphale said, not looking at Crowley. "I'm sorry."

He gestured, the rapid downward snap a familiar movement to Crowley, who had seen the angel perform any number of miracles, great and small, over nearly six thousand years. The floor below the statue's marble pedestal shimmered and took on a fluid, shifting quality, like silvery-pale quicksand, as the great statue sank slowly down into it. The earth closed softly, gently, over her head and hardened again into immobile marble and limestone. He knew that she wasn't actually buried under tons and meters of stone, that Aziraphale had most likely sent her to some ethereal pocket dimension where she would be protected from the cruelties of the time, but, at the same time, he couldn't help but think of fine white dust filling his lungs, a great weight against his back pressing him down, fathoms deep, into the starless ground. He shivered and rolled his shoulders backward in an attempt to loosen the sudden tightness between them.

"Not forever," Aziraphale said softly, "not forever. She'll sleep until a kinder time[19], when she'll be loved as she deserves."

Crowley almost told him then, as they stood together under the moonlight, both gazing at the empty niche where the statue of the goddess had stood a moment before. How broken and incomplete and damaged beyond repair he was, had been since that night two thousand years ago. How he wanted to lay himself at the angel's feet, moonlight bathing the silver scars on his bare back. But he was not quite able to form the words, imagining instead Aziraphale recoiling with disgust and pity at the sight of his scars, his shame, the evidence of how far he had fallen, and so he said nothing and did not meet Aziraphale's eyes.

How he loved him. How unworthy he was to love such a perfect, exalted thing.

* * *

[15]Crowley had, as we well know, a tendency to hiss when he forgot himself.return to text

  
[16]Crowley personally did not see the appeal.return to text

  
[17]Or a lot of hairspray, but that hadn't been invented yet.return to text

  
[18]Lucifer, of course, maintained that he was the original revolutionary, while Heaven approved of overthrowing tyrants and oppressors, in principle at least.return to text

  
[19]Actually, thought Crowley, there was quite a bit of merit in this sentiment. The idea of just sleeping for a hundred years or so was quite tempting. He suddenly felt very, very tired.return to text

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes on history referenced in Chapter 4:
> 
> Lord Byron is one of the most famous of the Romantic poets. He was notorious during his life for having many affairs with both men and women, and was quite the scandalous figure. In early 1816, he was more or less exiled from England following a series of scandals in which he was accused of adultery, incest, and sodomy, among other things; in the later part of 1816, he was living in Italy. (It's not inconceivable that he took a little side trip to Greece in there somewhere…) 
> 
> Byron had a long history with Greece, spent a great deal of time there throughout his adult life, and wrote many poems about it, including _The Curse of Minerva_, which is a long poem about the theft of the Parthenon Marbles by Lord Elgin. (Fair warning: if you do read this, it has its problematic moments; for one thing, Lord Byron blames Elgin's bad behavior on the fact that he was Scottish.) He was bitterly opposed to Lord Elgin, and went to Parliament to protest the acquisition of the Marbles. After he left England for good, Byron eventually ended up back in Greece, where he fought in the Greek War of Independence, which began in 1821 and ended in 1834. (This is of course the war that Aziraphale and Crowley are talking about in this chapter.) He died of illness there during the war, in 1824. He is considered a national hero in Greece, and there are various things named for him in modern Athens. 
> 
> The quote "mad, bad, and dangerous to know" was said about Byron by his ex-lover, Lady Caroline Lamb. 
> 
> The poem Aziraphale quotes is one of Lord Byron's most famous: She Walks in Beauty. He supposedly wrote it after being struck by the beauty of a woman he met at a party in London in 1814. 
> 
> Lord Elgin really did get thrown in a French prison; he was on his way home to England in 1803 when Napoleon declared war and took him prisoner. He remained there until 1806. That's a little bit of poetic justice for you…


	5. Chapter 5

**London, 2018**

The second alternative rendezvous point was the café in the British Museum. Tens of thousands of people from all over the world and all walks of life passed through it on a daily basis, so one resolutely anachronistic angel and one overly stylish demon could manage to blend in with minimal miraculous effort. Moreover, Aziraphale had deemed it appropriate that they discuss the saving of human civilization in a place dedicated to its study, even if the museum curators had gotten some of the details wrong. He also, unsurprisingly, found a certain, nostalgic comfort in being around things from the past, even if none of it was quite so old as they themselves were. Outwardly, Crowley made a show of teasing Aziraphale for his penchant for outdated things, but privately he understood the sentiment, even though there were certain things in his past that he was happy to leave buried. 

The café was under the dome in the Great Court of the museum; to get there from the entrance, you walked past the gift shop on the right and up a wide, curving sweep of stairs. If, instead of ascending the stairs, you turned to your left and shouldered your way past the crowds gathered around the Rosetta stone[20] and through a series of lesser-traversed galleries, you found yourself in a cavernous room, illuminated by a skylight that let in the ubiquitous, thin, grey British light. It was worlds away from the brightness, the clarity, the heat, of the Aegean sun. For those who had seen the Acropolis in ruins, the exhibit was only a poor, sad shadow of the real thing. For immortal beings who had seen the Parthenon in all its glory, who had been there when it had just been built, it was almost unbearable.

Crowley had gone to that room once, and only once, near the beginning of their time at the Dowling estate. It had been before one of their Saturday afternoon meetings at the café. He had so thoroughly intimidated the London traffic that he had arrived a very undemonic fifteen minutes early, and so had decided to spend the extra time seeing how many museumgoers he could tempt into touching things they weren't supposed to. He had wandered idly into the gallery housing the Marbles without really realizing where he was going, and stopped dead in his tracks. The broken bits and pieces of marble hung lifelessly upon the flat, sterile white walls like an overt accusation. They were only discontinuous portions of the whole, fragments of a story they couldn't possibly begin to tell in this state. A dull, gloomy heaviness fell upon him. The world was going to end, he thought, and wasn't he just a fool for thinking he could possibly stop it? Wasn't he complicit in it all, just as he'd been complicit in Elgin's theft? 

He'd stayed for just long enough to glance around the room once and catalogue the sum of Elgin's sins, before fleeing. Somehow, he'd made his way to the café, and there was Aziraphale, smiling despite the small, worried frown between his eyebrows that he'd acquired in the past few years. There was Aziraphale saying, "Crowley. You're looking a bit peaky, dear boy. Is everything all right?" 

Aziraphale's voice was concerned and slightly anxious, and so intimately familiar to Crowley that it hurt. It sliced, bright and sharp, through Crowley's feeling of dread, and suddenly everything _was _all right, or as all right as it could be with an Apocalypse looming in the near future. The leaden weight sitting on his chest lightened a bit as Aziraphale beckoned him to his table and began to talk about his progress with Warlock. Aziraphale still had faith that they could change things, that this mad scheme of theirs might work. Crowley remembered that it had been his idea in the first place, and found himself smiling back.

* * *

The bookshop was on fire. 

Crowley had lost Aziraphale. There was no sign of his physical presence nor of his Grace, not in what remained of the bookshop, nor anywhere in the vicinity of London. The world had spun down into nothing but ash and smoke and the whoosh of the flames as they devoured the dry pages of one precious book after another, crying _despair, despair, despair_, and, above all, a great, hollow emptiness inside him.

Somehow, he found himself in a bar somewhere in Soho, staring down three empty bottles of Talisker. He was dimly aware that he was still covered in ash and soot, but could not be bothered to miracle it away or render it unnoticeable[21]. It put things into perspective, he thought darkly and more than a little drunkenly. He might be broken beyond repair, he might never fly again, but nothing was as bad as losing Aziraphale forever. The world, as far as he was concerned, had already ended, and it had seen fit to crush him into the ground as a parting shot.

But then, just as he was contemplating going back to his flat and sleeping through the end of the world, he heard Aziraphale's voice, which was somehow everywhere and nowhere at once. He couldn't see him, try as he might, but the sense of his Grace was back, wrapping around Crowley's shattered self like a soft blanket[22].

Crowley had never wished more for his wings. If he'd still had them, he could have just _flown _to Tadfield, high over the flaming disaster of the M25. But on the other hand, this was the End Times after all; maybe the wall of fire extended all the way to Heaven, maybe the skies themselves were aflame, maybe there were legions of war-ready angels poised to smite any demon presumptuous enough to soar above the clouds. Maybe his wings would be smoking now, each feather trailing ash and sparks as it burned away into nothingness. Perhaps the artists who had painted demons Falling through ash and fire and blazing firmament, leaving a trail of smoldering embers and black smoke all the way down, had the right of it after all. Perhaps the world would end with everyone falling, already burning in all the ways that mattered, into great oceans of flame. 

Whatever the case, it couldn't be as bad as what he'd felt on the floor of the bookshop, that great, echoing, empty hole in his chest. 

Whatever the case, he was here now, wingless, in his Bentley, facing down a wall of flame, because Aziraphale had asked him to do so. Because Aziraphale had come back to find him. Because Aziraphale, despite everything, still thought that they could stop the Apocalypse, and Crowley had promised him that he would get to Tadfield by whatever means possible.

This wasn't a time for maybes, for regrets and bygones. You did what you could with what you had now, not what you wish you had or what you had once upon a time. He had a world to go save. This world, the only one they had, broken and imperfect and beautiful as it was. He had no wings, but he had his Bentley and he had his will and he had his promise to Aziraphale. He gritted his teeth and pressed his foot down on the accelerator, willing the car to stay intact and go faster, and then they were through, trailing flames and smoke all the way to Tadfield. 

And there at the end of the world, there was Aziraphale, whom he'd thought he'd lost forever. Aziraphale, who had come back from Heaven to find him. Aziraphale, who still believed in him, even when all hope was lost. Aziraphale, who was his best friend. Aziraphale, whom he loved enough to face down the Devil himself for. Aziraphale, whom he thought might actually love him back.

Aziraphale, who was holding a very familiar sword and beseeching Crowley to "come up with something! Or… Or… I'll never talk to you again!"

Even if you can't fly, you can still stand. You can still _do something._

Crowley threw up his hands, the long-healed but not-healed scars on his shoulder blades flaring sharply into pain at the sudden movement. Time stopped around them, and suddenly the three of them, Crowley, Aziraphale, and Adam, found themselves standing alone in a nearly featureless landscape. The silence, especially after the frantic clamor of the airbase, was sudden and shocking. It was empty and quiet because he hadn't had any time to imagine what he'd want in such a place, so he'd apparently manifested only the essentials, an atmosphere to breathe[23] and the ground to stand on. It was airy and white, almost like Heaven, which should have frightened him. But Aziraphale was here, and so it felt like a solace. 

Aziraphale was staring at the sword in his right hand, his eyes going wide with surprise or shock. The blade burst into flames with a long, echoing whoosh. Crowley felt what seemed like an answering whoosh of air at his back, and stumbled forward, almost falling to his knees. The burning of his scars had abated, and was replaced by an oddly familiar sensation of warm pressure, soft and insistent, at his back. 

Hardly daring to hope, he twisted his neck to peer over his own shoulder. There, spread out like all the temptations of the world, each black feather whole and lustrous and perfect, were his wings, just as they had been in Eden. He felt suddenly buoyant and newly confident. He snapped his fingers and manifested a new pair of sunglasses, pristine and perfect, and slid them on. 

Beside him, Aziraphale's wings appeared with another soft whoosh. They were as white as he remembered, arching gloriously above the angel's head. Their wingtips touched, behind Adams back. The contact sent a shuddering jolt of electricity along the crest of his wing and down his spine, and he felt a long-sleeping synapse reawakening, sending messages from the metaphysical plane to the physical. 

Miracles still happened in this world. Aziraphale had come back to him, had come back _for _him. Anything was possible, even stopping the end of the world.

"Adam. Listen…" he began. 

* * *

Aziraphale turned to look at him, his eyes blue and bright, the sword burning steadily in his hand. The flames were not blinding or too holy to look at, unlike the last time Crowley had seen this particular blade aflame. Instead, they cast a warm, pleasant glow, somewhat akin to Aziraphale's grace. Crowley felt his depleted and exhausted occult power reserves grow stronger, closer, easier to access. He gestured upward with the tire iron in his fist and concentrated. The foggy white landscape around them dissolved, reforming into the dusty, real tableau of the airbase with all its attendant humans and human-shaped beings, still frozen in the moment. The sword in Aziraphale's hand continued to burn, the flames licking up and down the blade. Crowley's wings remained and did not dissolve along with the white, silent dream world. He let out a breath he hadn't been aware of holding, folded his wings out of sight in a smooth, instinctive motion, and allowed time to start again, moving not toward an ending but a beginning.

* * *

The world did not end, but kept on turning. In most respects, it seemed much the same as it had before, but there were small things that were different, and better. For one thing, Adam Young had written himself a new origin story, or simply legitimized the one that had been real all along, depending on how you wanted to look at it. He was no longer the Antichrist, although he was still the bearer of powers that would have put those of the gods of old to shame.

For another thing, the lists of things Crowley could and couldn’t have had shifted, tectonically and fundamentally, much the same way the world had shifted hours earlier. Suddenly, everything was possible, even wings, even bravery.

"You can stay at my place," he said, reaching for Aziraphale's hand, "if you like."

Aziraphale did not respond out loud, but held on to his hand, silently, for the entirety of the bus ride back to London. The silence was surprisingly comfortable and perhaps even restorative. Aziraphale's hand was a solid, reassuring weight in his own, an answer just as clear as if it had been spoken aloud. Their hands remained clasped as they stumbled out of the bus in Mayfair and into Crowley's building, the lift, and finally his flat. 

In the dim, ambient lighting, the statue at the end of the hallway cast long, complex shadows along the concrete walls. Aziraphale ran his finger along the crest of the carved demon's wing. He said, "This is remarkable. You can't tell where one ends and the other begins."

Crowley had never put it into so many words, but it was true all the same. It was, he realized, why he'd bought the thing in the first place immediately after catching sight of it in the sculptor's studio in Florence hundreds of years ago.

Another realization was slowly dawning, as he looked first at the statue and all its points of contact, and then at their own hands, still joined. "Can't tell where one ends and the other begins…" he muttered. "Angel, that's it! That's the answer to Agnes' riddle. We swap faces. Well, bodies, I suppose, and Heaven and Hell will be none the wiser. You're brilliant, Aziraphale."

"No, _we're _brilliant," Aziraphale replied. Then he said, more softly, "This statue. It's not about one triumphing over the other, is it? It's about all the _possibilities_." 

He leaned over then and, very gently, very carefully, brushed his lips against Crowley's. And for the second time that day, for the second time in more than two thousand years, Crowley's wings came out, unbidden, knocking him forward into Aziraphale, who caught him, with two strong arms wrapped around his waist.

"Sorry, angel," he mumbled, reddening. "Don't quite remember how to control them just yet."

"Don't be," said Aziraphale, smiling against his lips and deepening the kiss. His own wings appeared in the air behind him.

Crowley's hair was suddenly long, falling from his shoulders in a profusion of tumbling curls, writhing and serpentine and alive. He couldn’t have controlled it even if he had wanted to. It was everywhere, falling over their intertwined bodies, coiling up and raining around the feathers of their wings, in a blur of black and white and red. It had a mind of its own and kept trying to get into Aziraphale’s mouth, which meant that it was in Crowley’s mouth as well. This was mildly irritating, but he was too drunk on sensation and awe and sheer joy that it barely registered. Every part of him, apparently, wanted to taste and be tasted; every bit of his body, every inch of his skin, wanted the benediction of the angel’s lips and tongue and breath.

Somehow, in a tumbling mess of feathers and hair and skin and hands and mouths, they managed to make it into Crowley's bedroom, shedding most of their clothing along the way. Neither of them would be able to remember later whether any miracles, of either flavor, were involved[24]. They made love, with Crowley clinging to Aziraphale in every way possible, his legs wrapped tightly around Aziraphale's waist, his wings wrapped around Aziraphale's back, his arms wound around Aziraphale's shoulders. He thought that perhaps his latent snake-like qualities were making an appearance, what with all the winding and clinging and wrapping; in any case, Aziraphale seemed to rather enjoy it so he did not worry overly much about it. He nearly cried when he came, with Aziraphale pressed hot and tight inside of him; Aziraphale came almost immediately afterwards, throwing back his head and moaning Crowley's name, his wings flared out high and full, beating frantically and rhythmically in the air.

They lay with their wings wrapped around each other, skin to skin, feather to feather, for some time afterward, too spent and satisfied to move. A thick tendril of Crowley's hair, still long, lay wrapped around Aziraphale’s left forearm, a fiery red serpent against the pale skin and fine, white-gold hairs. Eventually, they fell asleep. Crowley slept on his stomach, the same way he'd slept for thousands of years, but this time his angel was curled up beside him. Sometime in the hushed hours after midnight, he awoke to smooth hands running along his back, mapping the set of his shoulders, the length of his spine, the curve of his hip. Aziraphale pressed his lips to the spot directly between his shoulder blades and traced paths along the two silvery scars that flared out on either side. His breath was hot against Crowley’s back.

"I wish you'd told me," he said quietly, a bit of sadness in his voice. "Oh, Crowley. I am so sorry you had to suffer alone all of those years. I didn't know. I did wonder, you know, why you'd stopped revealing your wings around me, but it was around the same time that you started wearing the dark glasses all the time, so I assumed it was because you wanted to keep some distance between us. I thought you had decided to start behaving more like an adversary. I'm sorry I never asked."

"It's not your fault, angel," mumbled Crowley. 

"But it is, a bit. It was my sword. I knew, immediately, when I picked it up, the things had been done with it. It seems it was still mine, even after all those years."

"You're not responsible for all the actions of Heaven, angel, nor of their instruments."

"I was the one who gave it away. All of the terrible things it had done, beginning with Eve's child killing his brother – it was all because of _my _sword."

"Eve and Adam would never have made it beyond that first night outside the Garden if they hadn't had it. You _know _that, Angel."

"Well," said Aziraphale, "what happened to you won't happen again. I may have … threatened … the sword when I got it back. Told it very sternly that there would be no more of that sort of bad behavior, and that it had better undo what it had done to you post-haste as a start toward making it up to me if it didn’t want to spend the rest of eternity relegated to doing nothing more than opening champagne bottles[25]. I may have gotten the idea from you and your plants, actually."

Aziraphale's words, and the actions behind them, were a complex combination of fierceness and polite civility, just like he himself was. It was, if Crowley thought about it, exactly in keeping with the angel he knew, who was after all a bit of a bastard in the best possible way, and yet he still found himself surprised by the depth of Aziraphale's devotion, which mirrored, or perhaps even surpassed, his own.

"And here I thought you didn't approve of my horticultural techniques."

"I _don't," _replied Aziraphale, tartly. "But that doesn't mean I can't take inspiration from them, when the situation calls for it. Extraordinary circumstances, you know. And for the record, I'd fight Heaven and Hell for you, Crowley. One misbehaving sword is nothing compared to that, and it bloody well knows that." 

"I love you," blurted Crowley, unable to keep swallowing down the words. "I've loved you for so long, and you're still coming up with new ways to make me love you." 

"Oh, Crowley. _Crowley. _My dearest Crowley. I love you too. I'm sorry I didn't have the courage to tell you earlier. I'm sorry you had to go through so much alone. Forgive me."

"I told you already, there's nothing to forgive and there never will be," countered Crowley.

"I could heal them, if you like," Aziraphale said, hesitantly. "The scars, I mean."

"Don't. I don't want to forget. I want to keep them." said Crowley. Then he added, softly, "_All the history. All the joy and sadness._"

He wondered if Aziraphale would recognize his own words after more than two hundred years.

"More beautiful for the scars," murmured Aziraphale. "Created, and loved, and broken, and damaged, and lost, and repaired, and loved. And, above all, loved." 

Crowley rolled over then, and reached for Aziraphale, and pulled him against himself, shoulder to shoulder, chest to chest, lips to lips. In the night-quiet air of the room, a few lost feathers danced like dust motes, black and white in the moonlight, and an angel and a demon held each other in the last hours before Heaven and Hell took their vengeance.

In the morning, they stood in the early sunlight streaming through the glass balcony doors, naked as they had been at Creation, wearing nothing but their wings. Crowley's sunglasses lay forgotten somewhere in the room behind them. With some regret, he willed his wayward hair to shorten back into the upswept, gravity-defying style he'd been sporting the previous day. They faced each other, hands clasped tightly together, and closed their eyes in concentration. Unbidden, both sets of wings came up and around, wrapping their two bodies together in a cocoon of feathers, dark and light. When they broke apart, Crowley wore Aziraphale's corporation, and Aziraphale wore his. 

He realized with some surprise that Aziraphale's corporation carried within it a lingering sense of a yearning that was both familiar and strange, both like and unlike his own longing and love and fierce protectiveness for the angel. There was also a strong whiff of the goodness and love and Heavenly Grace that attended Aziraphale wherever he went, to which Crowley was attuned like a homing beacon. He also picked out little hints of other things: hedonism and pride and selfishness and pettiness and, yes, even lust; Heaven would have called those sins, and Hell too, most likely, but to him they were merely more of the qualities that made Aziraphale who he was, and Crowley loved him all the more for them. After six thousand years of harboring the same angelic soul, it made sense that the corporation would retain some trace of Aziraphale's essence and of his Grace. Adam must have given Aziraphale his old corporation back, Crowley realized gratefully, and not an identical, brand-new one. This body _smelled _like Aziraphale, for lack of a better, less human, term, and felt oddly, viscerally, comfortable. From a more logical standpoint, it would also better serve to mask his own demonic essence and to fool the other angels. 

"The wings didn't swap," said Aziraphale with some concern, examining one of his own stiff alular feathers above the bony jut of the shoulder of his current corporation. He twisted his upper body around to look at himself in the mirror, giving Crowley a distinctly odd view of Aziraphale's plush, full white wings bracketing his own knobby, too-long spine. His own wings, iridescently black in the morning light, sketched a sweeping arc over the soft, rounded curves of the shoulders of Aziraphale's corporation. Aziraphale reached out and ran a warm palm along the top of his wing, where the bones met at the apex and bent downward in a graceful, soaring arch. It was a curious sensation, a jolt of pleasure and warmth coursing from the metaphysical plane where he was still himself, undeniably the Demon Crowley, to the physical, where he wore a body that was at once familiar and alien. He thought of Aziraphale's sturdy and solid body literally protecting his own tender heart and his own newly-regrown wings, and felt a rush of love and warmth.

"S'alright," he mumbled. "We just won't show them. Nobody in Hell does, anyway. More trouble than it's worth to get that oozy goo that's all over the walls out of feathers. Got away without them knowing I lost them for two thousand years, didn't I?"

He stretched his wings out to their full span with a long flex of muscle and sinew, savoring the exquisite feeling of air moving along the tiny spaces between the splayed feathers. With some regret, he shook them out one last time, before folding them back into their hidden dimension and out of sight. They were not visible, would not be detectable to anyone, human or angel or demon, and yet they were there, sure enough. He snapped his fingers, and he was dressed in Aziraphale's worn velvet waistcoat, a crisp white shirt, tartan bow tie, beige trousers, and shiny wing-tipped oxfords.

"That's all right then. Come to think of it, I think management discourages it in Heaven too. There was a memo a few centuries back. They said it demonstrated Pride or fostered Envy or something else having to do with deadly sins, I can't quite recall which ones," said Aziraphale, shrugging and putting his own wings away. He performed his own mirror-image miracle to dress his current corporation in Crowley's typical clothing[26]. "Shame, though. Your wings would look beautiful with the tartan."

Crowley blushed, and hated himself for it. It was _tartan_, for Someone's sake. Nothing looked good with tartan. 

Aziraphale was staring intently at him, the little furrow between his brows indicating both wonder and consternation. (It _was _rather disconcerting, Crowley could attest, to see your own face looking back at you without the barrier of a mirror.) He reached out to touch the bow tie.

“You can’t do it by miracle. It’s too perfect. Like one of those dreadful pre-tied abominations.” He shuddered and narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Those were yours, weren’t they?”

(They weren’t, but Crowley quirked one corner of his mouth up and did not say anything to the contrary.)

Aziraphale tugged on one end of the tie so that it came undone with a gentle swish of silk, and asked softly, “may I?” 

Crowley nodded.

“It’s easier this way,” said Aziraphale, from behind him. “Like doing it on myself.”

Crowley could feel the heat of him where he was pressed up against his back, his breath whispering over the nape of his neck. Aziraphale's fingers brushed against his neck; they were _his _fingers and _his _hands, actually, Crowley thought dazedly, or at the least the hands of his corporation. They were bony, too thin, the knuckles too prominent; he'd never once thought of them as soft before, but they were undeniably so against his skin. He could see in the mirror how the pupils of Aziraphale's currently yellow eyes were narrowed in concentration as he finished off the bow, which was slightly rounded and puffy at the edges, a bit of the tail peeking out from beneath a loop that was just the tiniest bit askew. He had to admit that it _did _look better and more true to the angel's self than his own too-perfect, sharp, miracled attempt, although he doubted that any others would have made such a close study of Aziraphale as to notice such a thing.

“There. That's much better,” Aziraphale said with satisfaction, smoothing his hands over his shoulders. “Don’t go untying it, now.”

“Don’t worry. I know you’d never let anyone see you with your tie undone, angel.”

“That’s only for you, dearest,” said Aziraphale softly, and pressed a kiss to the back of his neck. 

Aziraphale walked over to the nightstand on Crowley's side of the bed[27], where his sunglasses were laying, and picked them up. He slipped them on, obscuring the golden irises and elongated pupils, and Crowley felt an odd, inexplicable sense of loss. 

"Well then, you'd best be off, like we decided," Aziraphale said, walking toward the hallway. He was doing a passable job of sauntering[28], much to Crowley's relief. "I'll see you at Saint James Park in a couple of hours."

Crowley picked up Aziraphale's jacket from where it was hanging on the coat rack by the door and put it on. It smelled like Aziraphale, like tea and the bookshop and the same cologne the angel had worn for thirty years, and it felt like both armor and a warm blanket[29] at the same time. He squared his shoulders and straightened his spine and thought about Aziraphale brandishing his flaming sword with courage and defiance. 

"Everything will be all right, angel," he said. "I have faith in you. I have faith in _us._"

* * *

Crowley wasn’t afraid of heights, not really. Not even after the Fall. Not even when he'd been without his wings. An earthly fall off the top of a building or down the side of a mountain was nothing to a being who could snap his fingers and turn the pavement or the bottom of a ravine into the softest feather bed. No, what he feared was the feeling of empty space at his back; the uncertainty that presaged a push or a fall. It was the feeling of being alone in the world, with no one to rely upon. Heaven was composed almost entirely of that empty space; even the soaring views outside the windows were a fabrication. There were no walls to put at his back that were not glass, fragile and transparent. And yet, wrapped in Aziraphale’s sturdy corporation, with the knowledge that his own wings were at his back, he felt cocooned, warm, even safe, all that emptiness around him notwithstanding. He wasn't alone, and had never been; it had always been the two of them, Crowley and Aziraphale, in Eden and in all the centuries of the world since, and up in Heaven and down in Hell. 

Even knowing this, things came close to unraveling. When Gabriel snarled, "shut your stupid mouth and die already," Crowley became so angry on Aziraphale's behalf that he had felt the knife-sharp shiver of feathers at his back, a deep, primal urge to posture and protect. He clenched his jaw and made himself think of cool marble instead of the seething, burning cores of stars. He visualized impassive stone weathering the ravages of fire, the surface scarred but still solid, rainwater running through carved grooves to wash the soot away. There was still an itch between his shoulder blades, but it was subdued, controlled, and the black wings that would have given away their deception did not appear. He thought of Aziraphale's soft-skinned hands, the way they did not tremble. He rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck and stepped into the column of hellfire. It enveloped him like an embrace. Like marble, he did not burn. 

* * *

They clasped hands and switched back. He felt the bones and muscles of his corporation shift subtly and knit back together around his spirit. It was a feeling not unlike getting his wings back the day before, a sudden, expansive rightness like a keystone sliding smoothly into place. 

They went for a late lunch at the Ritz, where they'd dined many times before, but it was different this time, the tinkling tones of the piano brighter, the champagne more exquisite, the petit-fours sweeter and more delicate. Even the service, which had always been top-notch, seemed even more stellar and attentive than before; their glasses were always full, no miracles required[30]. Perhaps it was because they'd cheated death, had pulled off a deception of astronomical proportions on both Heaven and Hell. Or perhaps it was because it was the first time they'd been to the Ritz as something more than just adversaries, or even friends. Perhaps it was how they sat side by side and Aziraphale's knee was pressed against Crowley's thigh under the table. Perhaps it was the way Aziraphale purposefully made eye contact with him, and did not look away. 

"A tartan collar?" asked Crowley again, when they were well into their second bottle of champagne. "And a singlet? Angel, I haven’t worn one of these since at least the 1950s." He rolled his shoulders, a little twitchily, unused to the feeling of the extra undergarment.

"I know," said Aziraphale, and paused. Crowley had just enough time to contemplate what it meant that Aziraphale knew this about him. It had been centuries that Crowley had been observing and cataloguing all of the tiny, mundane details that made Aziraphale the fussy, wonderful creature that he was, and somehow, somehow he'd never once let himself think that Aziraphale might have been doing the same for him all along.

Then Aziraphale continued, a bit hesitantly, “it was so they wouldn’t see the scars. In the bath.”

His scars were records, histories, chips and scratches in marble, the worn nap around the buttonholes of Aziraphale's velvet waistcoat that his fingers had brushed over countless times. They bore witness to long ago glories, to past mistakes and more recent revelations, but that was not a thing that most of the denizens of Hell could understand.

"Thank you," he said softly, and he meant it with all his heart. Nevertheless he snapped his fingers, and sent the undershirt away to whatever blessed place the tartan collar had gone, never to see the light of day again[31].

Aziraphale made a show of pulling out his gold pocket watch, and thumbing the latch open to check the time. On the inside of the cover was an engraved serpent, which had not been there the night before, casting a baleful, protective eye out at the world. He brushed a finger over the image, snapped the lid closed, and dropped the watch back into the pocket of his waistcoat. He looked up at Crowley and smiled.

"We've been here for three hours, dear," he said. "We'd best get a wiggle on."

"Angel," groaned Crowley. "We really need to talk about that phrase. It physically pains me."

"Not now, dear," said Aziraphale, with a smirk that made Crowley's insides melt. "Let's finish this champagne first. And then, well, I believe the Bentley and the bookshop are waiting for us." 

"I'll drink to that," Crowley said, raising his glass. "To bookshops and Bentleys and dining at the Ritz. To the world."

"To the world," replied Aziraphale, clinking his own glass against Crowley's.

"It's the end of an era, angel. No need for the Arrangement any longer."

"I prefer to think of it as the beginning of something bigger, and better. We're no longer adversaries, Crowley. Imagine that. We're free to be whatever we like. Friends. Partners. Lovers."

"Lovers. I like the sound of that," said Crowley. He was grinning like a giddy fool, which was probably most undemonic but he didn't care one bit, and nobody would be checking up on him anyway. 

"We can do anything, go anywhere. No more assignments, no more progress reports. I do think they'll leave us alone, but it might still be prudent to make ourselves scarce for a while in case anyone comes sniffing around. Leave town, perhaps."

"A holiday would be nice anyway, don't you think?"

"It's not every day one prevents Armageddon, after all. Where shall we go, my dear?"

"I have an idea, Angel," said Crowley. "Let's go to Athens."

* * *

[20]Aziraphale had once dragged him over to look at it, and had gleefully pointed out two typos in the Egyptian hieroglyphics and one grammatical error in the Ancient Greek. return to text

[21]The other patrons of the bar were far too preoccupied watching the news, which was reporting things like fish falling from the sky and massive fireballs on the M25, to give more than a passing glance to the sad, sooty man getting drunk in the corner. return to text

[22]Tartan, dammit. return to text

[23]Crowley actually had no idea whether Antichrists needed to breathe, but figured he had better play it safe. He didn't kill children, not even Antichrists, not even accidentally. return to text

[24]Highly likely, as getting Crowley's trousers off, especially given the current state of his Effort, either required a miracle or some very focused contortions. return to text

[25]This was just as empty a threat as Crowley's threats to toss spotty plants into the garbage disposal. For one thing, Aziraphale respected his champagne too much to slash the tops of the bottles off with a great big bloody sword. Especially if said sword was on fire and would warm up the champagne, which was unconscionable. For another thing, sabering champagne bottles open made an infernal mess. (Crowley had been known to do it on occasion, but never near any of Aziraphale's books. He was not suicidal.) In any case, the sword did not know any of this, so it remained sufficiently cowed. return to text

[26]Crowley was immensely relieved that Aziraphale had elected to dress his corporation via miracle, as he would probably die of mortification if he had to explain to Aziraphale the actual and very undignified process of putting on trousers that tight, much less watch him attempt to do so. return to text

[27]]Yes, Crowley had a side of the bed, even though up until the previous night, he'd never shared it with anybody. It was the left side, obviously. return to text

[28]The really tight trousers helped. return to text  
  
[29]Again, tartan. What else? return to text

[30]This was actually because the maitre'd had noticed that Aziraphale and Crowley had arrived incandescently happy and holding hands, and had promptly and gleefully informed the rest of the waitstaff, the majority of whom had been speculating for years about the status of the relationship between the two gentlemen who regularly came in together and spent entire multi-course dinners casting surreptitious, longing glances at each other. Every waiter in the place, and some of the kitchen staff as well, had to see with their own eyes, which resulted in someone coming by every five minutes to top up their glasses. return to text

[31]The back of the closet in his Mayfair flat, behind a veritable wall of black blazers, hence the lack of daylight illumination. He'd never voluntarily wear it again, but he rather liked having a reminder of the care Aziraphale had taken for his corporation and his reputation. return to text

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Believe it or not, there are no historical notes for this chapter, because it takes place entirely within canon events.


	6. Chapter 6

**Athens, August 2018**

Athens in August was sweltering and overrun with tourists, and the more sensible locals had all decamped for the islands, but neither Crowley nor Aziraphale really minded. It was only a matter of a tiny miracle or two, after all, to clear a path wide enough to walk side-by-side down a crowded boulevard or ensure that a table would be available at the tiny, unassuming hillside taverna that Aziraphale swore had the best lamb chops and grilled octopus in the city. Opening hours were things for humans, not angels and demons, so it was also easy enough to avoid the gaggles of university students getting in one last, desperate summer hurrah before the beginning of term and the teeming crowds of cruise-ship passengers on frantic shore excursions at the markets and museums and archaeological sites. 

The Acropolis Museum was stunning at night after closing, entirely empty of patrons and coolly lit by the full moon streaming through the walls of windows. It was all white walls and clear glass and pale, cold marble and the reflection of moonlight on placid, gleaming surfaces. On a superficial level, it reminded Crowley of Heaven, where he (as Aziraphale) had lately been sentenced to death by hellfire, with its long, pale colonnades and panoramic views and shiny, polished floors. It had even been designed to set visitors on an upward trajectory, with the crowning glory of the collection at the very top, where the light and the views were most dazzling. 

But, below the surface, it was a testament to centuries of history, to human ingenuity and human shortcomings and human mistakes and human glories. It was full of things used and venerated and destroyed and rebuilt and loved. There were missing pieces, sharp edges worn down into dust, empty spaces where things had been broken, or stolen, or secreted away. The walls of windows looked out on the city of Athens, with its monuments and its tenements side by side, its marble temples and its dirty streets, its heroic tributes and its razed ruins. Heaven was none of that, was only a sterile, faceless, unmarked, generic thing with false views and set pieces and too-pristine furnishings.

They made their way slowly through the museum, pausing frequently to examine various pieces of statuary and other artifacts. There were statues and friezes and reliefs of Athena everywhere: here were the shape of Crowley's eyes, there the slant of his cheekbone, here the coils of his hair, there the curve of his waist. Aziraphale insisted on stopping to look thoroughly at each and every one, frequently making Crowley turn his head this way and that before running his fingers along the line of his jaw and pronouncing his profile finer than any of the ones wrought in marble before them[32].

Eventually, they wound their way up to the top floor, where the friezes from the Parthenon were arranged around the inner walls, with great, gaping spaces left open where the missing panels should have been. 

"Did you ever go look at them?" asked Aziraphale, his voice echoing in the empty, high-ceilinged room. "The pieces that Elgin stole, in the British Museum."

"Once," admitted Crowley, grimacing. He left the rest unsaid.

"I went to see them. Many times. It was a reminder of why we were fighting to stop the Apocalypse. Because there were so many things left undone, so many wrongs that had to be righted, so many people and things that still needed to find their way home. And now there is time to do those things. This world is not perfect, but it’s the only one we have."

“I’ve always regretted my role in the whole Elgin business. He was a right tosser, through and through. I never should have written that contract myself.”

“It would have happened regardless, dear. But I do regret the part I played as well. I think all of my entreaties to be careful because the pieces were so precious only made him greedier for them. I should have done more to stop him. But I was afraid that Heaven would take notice, and they wanted Elgin happy, don't ask me why.”

"He's Downstairs these days, if it makes you feel any better. Still getting passed around to different departments, last I heard. So many sins they couldn't figure out where his permanent placement should be."

“I can't say I'm surprised. It still doesn't make things right though, does it? The wrongs he did, to this world. The wrongs _we _did, by letting him, even if we didn't have much choice in the matter. The marbles should be here, in Athens, where they belong.”

"No argument from me there, angel."

“I think it’s high time we began to make amends, don’t you?”

Aziraphale made a small, tight gesture with his hand, and Crowley felt the telltale tingle that signified the aftermath of a diffuse, far-reaching miracle. 

Somewhere nearly two thousand miles away, the director and each one of the trustees of the British Museum awoke with a sudden change of heart and an inexplicable feeling of grace and goodwill. There would be a hastily convened meeting the following day, which would conclude with a giddy phone call to the stunned Prime Minister of Greece. It was all so sudden, and so inevitable, and so ineffable, that it was enough to make even the most die-hard skeptics believe in something, whether it be miracles, divinity, the patron goddess of the city of Athens, or the inherent goodness at the heart of humanity[33].

"Well, that's done," said Aziraphale, smoothing his hands down his waistcoat. "Do you know, if you don't count our little swap after the Apocalypse, I think we can call this the first victory for our side." 

"The first of many, angel. We didn't save the world for the likes of Elgin, after all."

* * *

For the first time in a very long time, neither Aziraphale nor Crowley had some urgent place to be, or an assignment to complete, or, most importantly, any reason to disavow knowledge of one another. It felt almost as it had back in the days when the Acropolis was new, when all of the marble was still white and gleaming and unmarred by time. Like they had back then, they walked together along the wide olive-lined, marble-paved boulevards and reveled in each other's company; unlike those days, there were touches, and kisses, and nights spent together afterwards, and lazy mornings in bed. Each day was much the same as the last, full of sunlight and moonlight and long, rambling conversations, punctuated by endless bottles of wine and tiny glasses of ouzo and dishes of oil-slicked olives, and each day was precious.

Aziraphale had acquired a paper bag full of small honey cakes, dense and golden and sticky, and was contentedly munching on them as they strolled along the tumbled, narrow lanes and steep staircases that wound between flat-roofed, whitewashed houses draped with long, crimson falls of bougainvillea. 

"Do you remember," he mused, "how they always fed these to the sacred serpent up in the sanctuary of Athena?"

Crowley smiled. "It was terrible if the snake wasn't hungry. Bad omen. Kind of funny really. It was just a regular snake. Nothing sacred or prescient about it at all. Wasn't even venomous. They always wanted it to be a big one, and the big ones are mostly harmless."

"I can't imagine that snakes much enjoy eating cakes."

"Expert on snakes, now, are you? Can just swallow them whole. Like live mice. 'S not that bad."

Aziraphale had a _look _on his face. It was one of consternation mixed with either fascination or horror; Crowley couldn't quite tell which. Aziraphale glanced down at the half-eaten cake in his hand with a little frown, then looked, possibly involuntarily, at Crowley's throat. Crowley relented, just a little, and laughed.

"I'm just kidding, angel," he said, but couldn't help adding, "They get stuck in your throat if you swallow them whole. Takes forever to get down. Like swallowing a big gob of peanut butter."

"I'm not going to let you put me off my sweets, dear."

"Honestly though, I think the snake mostly ignored the cakes. The slaves would take them sometimes; I told them they could, early on, so long as the priests didn't find out. Other times there were too many people around and nobody could take them away. Everybody'd get all upset then, start blaming each other for the bad luck they were sure was on its way. It was great fun."

"Oh, Crowley," tutted Aziraphale, shaking his head and attempting to look sternly disapproving. The effect was rather ruined by the fact that his mouth was full of cake.

Crowley shrugged. "Demon. What d'you expect? Anyhow, it meant nothing if the snake ate it or didn't eat it. Just a silly superstition."

"Like the Goddess Athena, you mean?"

"Touché. They brought them to me too, you know. Left great big baskets full of them on my doorstep. Far too sweet for my taste. Good thing I had an angel to pass them off to. You'd have made a better goddess than me."

"They _are _most delightful," said Aziraphale, punctuating his point by taking a large bite, "but I imagine it would get rather tiresome to eat nothing but." 

"Perhaps neither one of us is cut out to be a goddess," conceded Crowley.

"And thank goodness for that," said Aziraphale. "I'm quite satisfied just being who we are, now that we've finally found our way in this world." 

"We're both of us nothing compared to Adam and his powers. Imagine the statues they would have built to that boy. He'd have his own Olympus, twice as tall as the original. All the honey cakes he could eat. And then some."

"He wouldn't want it. Well, he'd probably enjoy the cakes. But, if he'd been the sort that wanted to be a god… we wouldn't be here right now. Nobody would. That's rather the whole point, isn't it?"

They continued to wander, without any real destination in mind. Eventually they found themselves beneath a monumental statue that stood in a place of honor near the center of the city, between the ruins of the Temple of Zeus and the National Gardens. The statue depicted a woman setting a crown upon the head of a man; both figures were rendered in the smooth grace and idealized curves of the Neoclassical style, but something in the line of the man's nose and the set of his chin seemed familiar. Crowley read the inscription on the plinth, then looked back up at the carved marble figures. 

"Lord Byron," he said. "Being crowned by Mother Greece. They've made him too tall. Although the ridiculous pose is fitting. He always did strut around like a bloody great peacock."

"Not unlike certain demons," muttered Aziraphale.

"Hey!"

"Oh, hush, you. He died during the War for Independence here, you know. I think he'd have liked to know that they still remember, that they still think of him as a hero."

Lord Byron had been dead for nearly two hundred years. He was, after all, just a mortal, a brief, bright ember only momentarily aflame in the long history of the world. Still, the reminder of the man whom Aziraphale had spoken of with such fondness, then and now, needled at Crowley and awakened old insecurities. But things were different now, he reminded himself; he found himself with the courage to actually ask Aziraphale about it.

"Angel, do you remember that night back in 1816? It was raining cats and dogs up on the Acropolis, and you'd just been to see him. Lord Byron. He signed a book for you, and you were ever so pleased."

"I remember. I still have that book, back in the shop."

"Did you… I mean, were you and he ever…?" 

"Were we lovers, do you mean? No. Never. He was so flighty, even for a human. Chasing after a different man or woman every night. I prefer a bit more constancy."

Crowley was nothing if not constant in his affection, all six thousand years of it, for Aziraphale. 

"He chased after me once, you know," he said, feeling reassured enough to brag a little. "Even wrote a poem about me afterwards." 

"_And all that's best of dark and bright / Meet in her aspect and her eyes."_

"That's the one. Did you know, then?"

"No, but I had my suspicions. It's always been my favorite."

"The last bit is bullshit though."

"Oh, I think it's quite romantic."

"Oh, c'mon, angel. _Days in goodness spent?_ Really? I mean, I know I turned him down, but was that really a reason to write such slanderous things about me?"

"I'll grant you it might have been a bit of an exaggeration. Dear George was always too fond of hyperbole. But he wasn't entirely _wrong_. Now, _a mind at peace with all below_, on the other hand… you're right about _that _bit being hogwash."

"Why do you always call him George?"

"It was his name. He preferred to use it, in private. I think it got tiresome for him for his reputation to always precede him. When Lord Byron the myth was all anyone saw, and not George Gordon the man."

"It was good of you to do as he wished then, angel." He meant it, and even felt a sort of grudging kinship with Lord Byron, with _George_, but there was still a tiny bit of the old jealousy there.

"You taught me that, Crowley. When you told me that you'd changed your name, so long ago."

"Oh," he said. And just like that, the flicker of jealousy went out.

"It occurs to me, dear, that I've never asked - would you prefer that I called you Anthony?"

He thought about Aziraphale saying his name in the Bastille, raising his head to look at him with a bright, dawning light in his wide eyes, and in the British Museum, under the heavy shadow of Elgin's ill-gotten plunder, and at the gateway to the Acropolis, in the driving rain. He thought about Aziraphale murmuring his name into his mouth, his neck, his shoulder, as they made love, the way Aziraphale had gone incoherent and rapturous with pleasure, how _Crowley _had been the only word he could say, gasped over and over again like an ecstatic prayer, as he came, just seconds after Crowley had done the same, their wings bursting into being and everything going incandescent and glorious. He thought about Aziraphale whispering his name, softly, so softly, just as they were drifting off to sleep afterwards, and again when they awoke in the morning. _Crowley. Crowley. Crowley._ He thought about the first time Aziraphale had called him _Crowley_, how he'd started to say _Crawly _but caught himself.

_Crowley _was the taste of the sea and salt and Roman wine; the way the rain running cold down his neck had vanished to be replaced by the velvet touch of warm air; the brush of wings behind the Antichrist's back while the world burned. Even in the infinite vastness of the firmament between the white-hot points of burning stars, he would be able to hear Aziraphale's voice saying _Crowley, Crowley, _and he would always, always be able to find his way home. He understood, too, finally, that the opposite was also true, that he was Aziraphale's beacon in the darkness just as much as Aziraphale was his, that they'd save each other, over and over again, as many times as they needed to.

He recalled Aziraphale in that London church during the Blitz saying _Anthony? __I'll get used to it, _in a dry voice with a gun at his throat. The memory was precious to him, as all memories of their long history together were, but _Anthony _out of the angel's mouth did not have the resonance of _Crowley_, did not awaken that essential thing deep at his core in quite the same way.

"Nah," he said. "_Anthony _is just for the humans. _Crowley _is just fine."

* * *

"There," said Aziraphale, snapping his fingers softly. Something settled, airy but with a comfortable metaphysical weight, over the two of them like dust or starlight. "No human eyes will be able to see us. They might see … owls, maybe, if they tried."

They stood on the rooftop deck of their hotel, and looked out into the night for a long moment. Before them, the Acropolis, illuminated, shone brighter and more proud than the moon. Aziraphale turned to Crowley, smiled, and held a hand out in invitation. "Shall we fly, my dear? Anywhere you want to go."

Crowley took the proffered hand, the warmth of it like an anchor, and spread his wings to their greatest extent, high and arching and poised, each long flight feather crisp and arrow-straight. Beside him, Aziraphale did the same, and together, they lifted off, silently, into the night sky.

Flying, as it turned out, was not dissimilar to riding a bicycle[34], and after the first few tentative beats, the feel of the air whistling through his pinions awakened the old, old instinctual thrill, along with the knowledge of how to bank and dive, how to ride the long, swooping air currents from one mountaintop to another, how to catch and embrace the little swirling eddies and gusty drafts. His wings and his muscles and his heart remembered each one of the hundred tiny individual motions that they needed to execute with sharp, rapid precision to form a single combined, fluid, sweeping, exuberant whole. He miracled away his sunglasses, and kept his eyes wide open as the wind whipped against his face with a speed and vigor that would have made human eyes water and burn. 

Aziraphale flew as fast and with as much joyous, wild abandon as he did, with none of the white-knuckled apprehension that he displayed in the passenger seat of the Bentley. In this moment, they were two creatures made for flight, for the element of air, with the entirety of the vast night sky laid out like a feast before them.

The city of Athens spread out below them, its roads and buildings and monuments delineated in sprawling tangles of lights, white and gold and red, with large, irregular dark patches marking the uninhabited areas of land that remained wild even in the middle of the city. As they gained altitude, all of the individual lights began to blur together into gold and resolved into the illuminated bones of the city, the ancient curving lines of the old roads melding with the straighter lines of newer thoroughfares. The web of lights sprawled out like a jagged, irregular sunburst with the brilliant glow of the Acropolis at its heart, its rays reaching out to the mountains and the sea. The last time Crowley had seen Athens from this vantage had been nearly two and a half millennia ago, when firelight and moonlight and starlight were all there was in the way of illumination. He had never seen it like this, lit from end to end with electrical light, and the sheer, busy, human audacity of it all was breathtaking and overwhelming.

They banked sharply, avoiding the bustling port and the crowded seaside resorts, and flew at exhilarating speed toward the southern coast, where there were still uninhabited, unlit stretches of the landscape that were rocky and wild, with steep, craggy sea cliffs that dropped precipitously into the ocean. The sea was a glassy midnight expanse upon which the lights of a few lonely ships floated by in the distance. Here, the stars were bright and profuse, a much older sort of breathless, audacious, enduring beauty.

Up here, away from the exhalations of the city and above the muggy sea-haze, the air was rarefied, cold, and clean. It would have made humans and other earthbound beings dizzy and lightheaded, but for winged creatures it was different: a bracing, sharp clarity and a jubilant lightness. The air in the stratosphere was cold a thousand feet above the sea, but the exhilaration of flying was its own heat. Aziraphale’s hand in his was a point of warmth as they chased the thermals and currents, carving great upward arcs in the air before plunging straight down through layers and layers of air, their wings folded tight and sleek against their backs. 

It was not, he thought with some surprise, unlike lovemaking. The knife-sharp slice of the wind between his feathers. Every sensation rarefied and made sublime. Aziraphale's breath warm against his neck. Climbing, cresting, diving. Their jubilant, untrammeled laughter as they tumbled together, hand in hand, wings outstretched, across the sky. The pure, perfect joy of it all.

"There are places like this," he said to Aziraphale as they drifted on a warm thermal, catching their breath, "not far from London, on the south coast. White cliffs. Wild ocean. Uninhabited islands. Not too many people." 

"You'll have to take me there, then, when we go back home."

After some time, they turned back toward the city, coasting at a leisurely speed and a lower altitude, allowing the gentle breeze to carry them back inland. They soared over the crowded, uneven rooftops, riding the smooth dips and rises of the swirling currents toward the Acropolis. A downdraft brought them low over the ancient open-air Roman theater in the shadow of the Propylaea, which had been restored since they'd last been in Athens and now hosted lavish outdoor concerts all summer long. As they passed overhead, casting a bare shadow of great wings below, the Athens Symphony Orchestra, which was in the middle of a concert, began to play an orchestral arrangement of Queen's _Save Me_[35].

"I'm glad they've finally brought music and laughter back to this place," said Aziraphale softly. His voice was just audible over the swelling music and the rush of the wind. "It was always meant to be like this, not just broken columns and empty pedestals."

The Acropolis itself was brilliantly lit, with circles of upturned floodlights surrounding each of the white-columned structures, so that it was visible from miles around. It was the way of the world these days – every city, afraid of the dark, had its landmark that never went dark, its beacon against the encroaching night. It was beautiful, certainly, but Crowley found himself thinking with a certain wistfulness of what it had been like long before the advent of electricity: the pure darkness, the multitude of stars, the dull red glow of the sacred fires inside marble sanctuaries, the pediments and columns complete and unbroken, the rooftops unfallen. But there were two thousand and more years between then and now, years full of resentment and complications and self-loathing. What they had now was the future spread before them, a future that reached beyond the Antichrist’s eleventh year, bright and electric and unwritten.

The Parthenon had played host to all the forms of light there were, and all the forms of darkness too. It had been broken, and rebuilt, and looted, and besieged. And it had somehow managed to remain beautiful in every incarnation: pristine, shattered, scarred, restored.

It was shocking, sometimes, to think that they’d been on earth for over six thousand years and there were still things, places, experiences that could leave them dumbfounded. One could visit some of those places a thousand times and still find marvelous and undiscovered aspects to them. There were things so wondrous that they’d never cease to be miraculous, first among them the angel whom he'd loved for six thousand years, and would love for six thousand more, and for all the infinite years beyond that.

They soared over the Propylaea and sketched a wide circle in the air above the Parthenon, the Erechtheion, and even the tiny, rebuilt temple of Athena Nike, before landing upon the rocky, open expanse of the plateau before the Parthenon. Together they approached the structure, walking into the ring of light and ignoring the cordons and large, uneven piles of rubble and stone that had been strategically left uncleared to keep nosy tourists away.

Aziraphale dropped Crowley's hand, leaving him standing between two columns, and advanced further into the shadow-striped interior toward the eastern colonnade. He appeared to be peering intently into the empty air before him; he had the same look on his face that he had when he was so deep in a book that he would not notice someone literally rearranging the room around him[36].

“Ah!” he exclaimed suddenly, bringing his hands together. “There you are!”

He lifted both of his hands, palms toward the sky, and something enormous rose up out of the ground a few paces in front of him, creating no fissure as it did so and leaving no gaping hole behind. Athena Parthenos, bleached pale and with her edges worn soft with age, towered many times Aziraphale's height and cast a long shadow across the cracked slabs of the floor. She looked exactly as she had when Crowley had last laid eyes on her in 1816. The rest of the world believed that she had been lost sometime in the fifth century; only the two of them knew the truth.

“I believe the archaeological dig has just found something rather remarkable,” said Aziraphale softly, turning to look at Crowley, his eyes agleam.

Crowley looked up at his own face, wrought larger than life in smooth marble, at the smaller, broken figure of Nike in her hand, and thought of how much he remained the same, and how much he had changed.

"What happened to false idols and graven images and all that, Angel?"

"Nothing changes the truth of what She is, up there. But what they – we – do here on Earth, it's a different thing entirely. Poetry, and art, and stories, and love. Temples and gods and heroes. We all need our symbols. We all need our anchors. You can believe in those things, and still believe in Her. It's not a choice between one or another, or even a compromise. You can have both, in their fullest forms. There's room in the heart, in the soul, for so much. It took me a long time to understand that. It took you to make me understand that."

Crowley felt the truth of this all along his spine and the nerves of his wings, and above everything else, a great rush of love for Aziraphale, who knew every line, every curve, every movement, of his body and his heart and his cracked-marble soul. He stepped out from between the columns into the open air, and Aziraphale came to join him, taking hold of his hand. They opened their wings, and pumped them once, twice, in synchrony, before catching a low updraft a few feet into the air. Together, they rode the draft up to the level of the pediment, and there, with nothing but air all around them, in full view of the Goddess of the City of Athens, Crowley kissed his angel.

On the far side of the Acropolis, within the foundations of a ruined watchtower, a spring, dry for more than two thousand years, came back to life, bubbling with sweet, fresh water, and, beside it, an olive tree sprang fully formed and heavy with fruit from the rocky earth. 

* * *

[32]Crowley determined that as soon as possible he was going to drag Aziraphale to Florence in retaliation, where he knew for a fact that there were several Renaissance sculptures modeled after a particular plump, bright-haired angel.return to text

[33]The last one is, admittedly, still a stretch.return to text

[34]Which, admittedly, Crowley had not done since they were still called velocipedes by people other than Aziraphale, because why on earth would one ride a bicycle when one could drive, particularly when human concerns like traffic and parking were not an issue?return to text

[35]Back in London, the Bentley was laughing.return to text

[36]Unless that someone made the mistake of touching his meticulously organized (if not by any system of logic comprehensible to anyone other than bibliophile angels) book collection.return to text

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes on history and culture referenced in Chapter 6:
> 
> The museum that they visit in the first part of this chapter is the [Acropolis Museum](https://www.theacropolismuseum.gr/en) (sometimes also called the New Acropolis Museum) in Athens. It was specifically built to house, protect, and display the artifacts from the Acropolis (the things you see at the actual Acropolis now are replicas). I personally think it is one of the most well-designed museums I've ever visited and that it should be a must-see on any list of things to do in Athens. If you have the chance, take a tour: the tour guides are so well-informed and you'll learn a lot of interesting things. (That's how I learned about Nike Apteros, and the Athena Parthenos statue, among other things.) 
> 
> The Lord Byron statue is located between the Zappeion/National Gardens and Hadrian's Arch/Temple of Olympian Zeus. You can see some photos of it [here](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Monument_to_George_Gordon_Byron_\(Athens\)).
> 
> The Odeon of Herodes Atticus is a Roman amphitheater on the southwest slope of the Acropolis that was built in the second century during the Roman Occupation of Athens. It was restored in 1950 and concerts and other events have been held there ever since. Fun fact: when I was last in Athens (in 2019) there was a symphonic tribute to the music of Queen there. Unfortunately I was unable to attend, but that is where I got the idea to have them playing Save Me (which is pretty much the theme song for this story) when Aziraphale and Crowley fly over. [Here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsoCIkQJXPk) is the London Symphony Orchestra's cover of it, if you are curious about what an orchestral arrangement might sound like.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic came about because on my last trip (October 2019) to Europe, I had the opportunity to visit both the Acropolis Museum and the British Museum within a couple days of each other. I'd visited both before at different times, but seeing the artwork from the Parthenon both where it belongs (in Athens) and where it was taken by force (in London) was incredibly jarring and eye-opening. I also learned about Nike Apteros on that same trip, and it reawakened my old obsession with Greek mythology (which if we're being honest never went away). The combination of all of those things with my current Good Omens obsession gave rise to this crazy and possibly excessively ambitious idea of Crowley-as-Athena losing his wings, with a detour into the Elgin affair in the 19th century. You have no idea how many research rabbit holes I fell down while researching this thing. It was difficult at times to write, and went off in directions I did not expect (the whole Lord Byron part, and the bit about names and naming, was not at all planned), but I'm very proud of the way it turned out. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and commenting, especially those of you who have been reading from the first update. It's taken me a lot longer than I expected to finish, and I appreciate your patience. I love you all. I hope it's been worth the wait. 
> 
> I can be found on tumblr @moondawntreader.


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